EU ministers: Balkans becoming ‘chessboard’ for big powers

EURACTIV.com with AFP 

Boris Johnson with his Slovak colleague Miroslav Lajcak at the Foreign affairs council on 6 March 2017. [European Council]

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The EU warned yesterday (6 March) that the Western Balkans risk becoming a “chessboard” in a game between major powers, as Britain accused Russia of meddling in the region.

Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said there was “profound” concern about a region where dangerous historic tensions were also flaring up.

The 28 EU leaders are to discuss the situation in the Western Balkans at a summit on Thursday amid growing concern over instability and alleged Russian involvement.

“I have seen in the Western Balkans in these days much more than ever before a region exposed to different layers of challenges and tensions,” Mogherini said after EU foreign and defence ministers met in Brussels.


Mogherini to debrief EU leaders on external threats to Western Balkans

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini will report to European foreign ministers today (6 March) on a trip she took to all six Western Balkans EU hopefuls, who find themselves under mounting geopolitical pressure.

Asked about Russia’s role in the region, Mogherini replied: “The Balkans can easily become one of the chessboards where the big power game can be played.

“So the concern is there… and it is profound,” she said.

Mogherini said renewed ethnic and territorial tensions in a region that in the 1990s saw Europe’s worst bloodshed since World War II in the former Yugoslavia were “extremely dangerous”.

The EU diplomatic chief experienced the tensions herself last week when she faced pro-Russia chants as she addressed the Serbian parliament on a visit to the region.

Earlier British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Russia must halt its “completely unacceptable” meddling in the EU’s backyard.

“Let us be very clear, Russia is up to all sorts of no good,” Johnson said as he arrived for the meeting in Brussels.

“They are engaged in cyber warfare, engaged in undermining countries in the Western Balkans – you have seen what happened in Montenegro – to say nothing of what has happened in eastern Ukraine,” he said.