If they want to join the EU, Western Balkan countries must align with EU policies, including the introduction of sanctions against Russia, Croatia's Foreign and European Affairs Minister Gordan Grlic Radman said on Saturday.

“It’s impossible to sit in two chairs. All countries should condemn the Russian aggression, impose sanctions, show solidarity with Ukraine and promote regional stability and good-neighbourly relations,” Grlic Radman said at a panel discussion entitled “Western Balkans: A New Euro-Atlantic Momentum”, held as part of the 16th Dubrovnik Forum.

Grlic Radman said that “it is also in Croatia’s interest to have a safe and stable neighbourhood”, reiterating that Croatia can help W. Balkan countries with its “know-how, expertise and experience” on the journey to EU membership.

Kosovo minister: EU letting Vucic have his own way as it let Putin

Kosovo Foreign Minister Donika Gërvalla-Schwarz said that “some” in the neighbourhood have been helping Russia in the aggression for two years, without that having an effect on their relationship with the EU.

Without the USA and NATO, the EU is a paper tiger in terms of security. Because the EU is aware of that, it makes concessions, she said.

Gërvalla-Schwarz believes such a policy is very dangerous because by making concessions, the EU encouraged Putin to “escalate”.

The EU’s recent concessions to aggressive actors in the region encourage autocrats to additionally escalate, test the West, and possibly launch a war, Gërvalla-Schwarz said in reference to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

She stressed that there was no need for reconciliation between Western Balkan countries because they have good relations, the exception being Serbia, which, she said, is the only actor in the Western Balkans that has to understand that reconciliation “can be a very positive key to regional peace and stability.”

Milosevic’s successors must go to neighbouring countries and apologise for the crimes, that is what will make reconciliation possible, she said.

Schmidt: Dodik lives in a dream world if he thinks there will be concessions

High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schmidt commented on the latest crisis in BiH caused by attempts by Bosnian  Serb leader Milorad Dodik to prevent the enforcement of rulings by the BiH Constitutional Court in the Serb entity of Republika Srpska.

The entity parliament in June adopted, on Dodik’s initiative, a law banning the implementation of decisions by the BiH Constitutional Court.

On 1 July Schmidt revoked the controversial laws and changed BiH’s penal code to enable prosecution of those undermining the country’s constitutional order.

Schmidt said that Dodik lives in a dream world if he thinks that there will be no response to his actions. There are no concessions for the violation of the BiH Constitution and the Dayton Peace Agreement, he said.

BiH Foreign Minister Elmedin Konakovic, too, commented on Dodik, saying that one of the reasons for his actions was his strong ties to the Putin regime.

Konakovic also believes that the Russian aggression against Ukraine had given new impetus to the EU enlargement policy and that W. Balkan countries should use it, while North Macedonia Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani said that the EU should stress the benefits of EU membership.

A similar message was given by the EU’s Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue, Miroslav Lajcák, who said that the EU would not be complete without enlargement to W. Balkan countries, which, he said, is also necessary for its aspiration to be a global player.

Gabriel Escobar, the US special envoy for the Western Balkans, said that there was a clear difference between W. Balkan countries that were members of NATO and those that were not.

The former have made the biggest progress in overcoming the challenges of ethnic rivalry while the latter, which have not done it, today face the most challenges, Escobar said.