(Reuters) – European Union leaders must pay more attention to increased instability in the Western Balkans, specifically in Bosnia and Serbia, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday ahead of an EU summit in Brussels.
“We have to monitor the situation in southeastern Europe, primarily the stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the situation in Serbia,” Plenkovic told reporters in Brussels.
He was alluding to the gravest political crisis in Bosnia since the end of its 1992-95 war, caused by separatist Serb moves after their leader Milorad Dodik was handed a year in jail for defying rulings by the post-war international peace envoy.
Plenkovic also referred to months of anti-government rallies in Serbia after the deaths of 15 people in a railway station roof collapse drew accusations of widespread high-level corruption and negligence.
Plenkovic also said it was important to use momentum created by U.S. President Donald Trump to end the war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“We believe that Ukraine can survive only if it stays strong and boosts its defence capacities,” he said.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; editing by Gareth Jones and Mark Heinrich)
