Die Welt: Orban's Dangerous Western Balkan Game

Viktor Orban, BSF, Bled, September 1 2021 (BETAPHOTO/STA/Nebojsa Tejic/MO)

Budapest is financing the attempt to destroy Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Brussels just throws money at problems in the Balkans and shows no resistance to nationalists, the German daily Die Welt wrote in an editorial.

In the text titled "Orban's Dangerous Western Balkan Game," the paper assessed that Hungary, a member of NATO and the EU, was supporting the Bosnian Serbs' breakaway sentiments and was aided in that from Brussels, no less. The paper recollected Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor  Orban's visit to Banjaluka last November, and the statement heard in Republika Srpska (RS) on that occasion, according to which RS enjoyed "full support of Prime Minister Orban and the State of Hungary – hence also in seceding from Bosnia and Herzegovina," as conveyed by the Deutsche Welle (DW).

Despite the crisis that also jeopardizes both NATO and the EU in this way, it seems that such concerns have little impact in Budapest, it was assessed in the text. Orban will block the European Union's every attempt to impose sanctions against (Milorad) Dodik. Even more than that – Hungary has placed EUR100 million in aid at the disposal of Republika Srpska, the paper stated, and raised a question about the role of EU Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi "as an ethnic Hungarian and Orban's loyal follower."

"His role actually mandates him to represent the joint interests of the Union and not of his country of origin. Suspicions are being raised about it, though," reads the text in the German daily.