BERLIN – If an agreement on changing Kosovo’s borders along ethnic lines is reached, Germany will not allow it, assessed Bodo Weber, Senior Associate at Democratization Policy Council from Berlin.
“In the extreme case of a conflict, Berlin would stop Serbia’s and Kosovo’s accession to EU”, stated Weber for Deutsche Welle.
He pointed at Chancellor Merkel’s support for the integrity of current borders during her recent meetings with Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Council of Ministers Chairman Denis Zvizdić and Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenković.
According to Weber, High Representative of EU Federica Mogherini has brought the dialogue, which was heading in the direction of normalisation without any border change since 2013, in a state of crisis.
“The result of the crisis is crossing all red lines, that is, lack of reaction to crossing them, which shows EU’s weakness”, he said.
Weber is not surprised with the lack of opposition to this kind of solution in Washington. President Trump, he emphasises, has been undermining the order West had been working on for 30 years since taking office.
Reactions from EU and US, Weber thinks, have demonstrated “the weakness of the West when it comes to Balkan’s nationalists. They have been hoping, ever since Trump’s victory, for a chance to implement their nationalistic agendas from 1990s”.
Germany will, however, remain on the side of multi-ethnic borders with strong minority rights, and that is crucial for this discussion, he concluded.