Russia abstained during voting in the Security Council on extending the mandate of the EUFOR mission in BiH. Public attention was attracted by the words of the Russian ambassador, that it is “unacceptable that BiH is being pushed from outside in the direction of the EU.”
As Deutsche Welle reports, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that it greets that the European military mission in BiH was extended for another year.
“It is regrettable that at this time, not all Security Council members actively support this mission,” a ministry spokesperson told Deutsche Welle in Berlin.
“Great Britain and Germany recently launched a new initiative to redefine the process of BiH’s approach to the European Union. This initiative is an offer to BiH citizens connected to concrete reform processes. Responsibility for the future course of the country lies exclusively in the hands of the country’s leaders,” he added, alluding to the statement by Russia’s ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin.
Churkin during the debate on the EUFOR mission stated that there are “bad examples in which a country, on the basis of outside pressures, is pushed in the direction of EU integration.”
For Tobias Flessenkemper, an expert on the Balkans with the European Institute CIFE in Nice, Russia’s voting is a signal from the country that it has the potential, positively or negatively, to influence the course of events in the Balkans.
“Russia has thus far, even taking into account the abstention during the vote, supported BiH’s path toward the EU. The new statements by Vitaly Churkin are cause for concern, because between the lines it can be read that this is no longer the case. However, the overwhelming majority of BiH citizens, the country’s government, the parties that are now negotiating the formation of a new government, even RS President Milorad Dodik, support the process of European integrations, so I see no reason for dramatization,” he says.
True change in Russia’s strategy in BiH would be that they are opposed to continuing EUFOR’s mission in BiH, which the government in Moscow could have achieved if it wanted to by vetoing in the Security Council, he adds.
Tobias Flessenkemper in any case believes that Vitaly Churkin’s statements will have a counter-effect. The EU foreign ministers will already next week at a meeting discuss the British-German initiative for a new approach to BiH’s integration process into the Union. He says it is necessary for the Stabilization and Association Agreement to enter into force, and they must enforce economic and social reform in BiH.
“I think that Churkin’s statements can only give wings to the aforementioned initiative because there is now pressure on European heads of diplomacy to act, because it became more and more clear that BiH needs greater support on the path to the EU,” he concluded.
(Source: Oslobođenje)
