Germany strongly rejects ideas that would lead to redrawing borders in the Balkans and thinks they are relics of failed past, said Michael Roth, Germany's Minister of State for Europe.

In an interview for Deutsche Welle, published on Thursday, Roth said that redrawing the borders would not change any of the problems in the Balkans and it would only create new conflicts.

“Something like that would be extremely dangerous, and it would threaten to reopen Pandora’s box with conflict potential. …The present and the future of the Western Balkans lie in reconciliation, close regional cooperation and a final departure from nationalism and revanchism,” Roth said.

Roth was commenting an alleged document published by Slovenian web portal necenzurirano.si, in which unidentified authors propose the carving up of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the establishment of a greater Serbia and a greater Albania. The media attributed the authorship of that document to Slovenian prime minister Janez Janša, but he resolutely denied it, and so far no one has proved whether the document is authentic and who it could have been intended for.

The leading German diplomat responsible for European affairs now stressed that the Slovenian government had clearly distanced itself from such a document as well as all “fantasies” about changing the borders because that could not be in the interest of anyone in Europe, especially given the tragedy caused by the wars in former Yugoslavia.

Roth explicitly stated that there were no forces in the European Union which would advocate the redrawing of borders.