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Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and counterpart Elmedin Konakovic in Sarajevo: walk through the old town of the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Photo: Soeren Stache / dpa

The decisive sentence comes in the Villa Gorica, under a heavy chandelier.

“We can no longer allow gray areas that only benefit Russia,” says Annalena Baerbock right at the beginning of her trip to the Balkans in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.

He describes the mission that is taking the German Foreign Minister to the Balkans for two days, to Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Green politician also wants to send a signal against Moscow's attempts to gain or even expand influence in this fragile part of Europe.

Montenegro, the first stop on their journey, is already a candidate for EU membership.

But the country still has a way to go; deficits in the legal system, corruption and the fight against organized crime are just a few keywords.

Baerbock tries a mixture of self-criticism and encouragement.

Montenegro once had a section of highway through China financed and went heavily into debt in Beijing.

The fact that “Europe wasn’t there” when the country “needed large infrastructure projects was a mistake,” says Baerbock.

The EU's change of course in investment projects has now also strengthened Europe's sovereignty.

The EU accession negotiations must “move quickly,” the EU must deliver, Montenegro too, “together.”

Russian attempts at influence

Baerbock wants to increase the pace.

Only an EU that “reacts quickly and together” can exert its weight in world politics.

“Both” need to “do their homework faster,” she says, accusing the EU and Montenegro’s government of doing so.

Montenegrin Foreign Minister Filip Ivanonvic reminds that, according to a survey, two-thirds of the population support joining the EU.

He did not directly respond to a question about Russian attempts to influence, for example via the Serbian-language media landscape.

It's obviously an issue he doesn't want to make bigger.

He speaks cryptically about “results and effects” that should be looked at.

And with a view to the EU accession negotiations, he said that he “does not see the possibility of Montenegro deviating from this path.”

On Tuesday morning, Baerbock walked through the old town of Sarajevo with the Foreign Minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Elmedin Konakovic.

The city that once became the scene of bloody battles in the Yugoslav war of disintegration in the 1990s.

It passes mosques and Christian churches.

Bosnia-Herzegovina is a country where Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox live together, where a High Representative can still make, and has recently made, profound decisions.

A new electoral law is currently being negotiated in parliament; there are only a few weeks left until a decision is made before the upcoming local elections.

It would be “unfortunate,” says Baerbock, if the High Representative “had to pass the law.”

The office, once created by a UN resolution, is currently held by Christian Schmidt, CSU member and former German Minister of Agriculture.

Baerbock met him the evening before, as did the members of the three-member state executive committee.

The country has had EU candidate status since December 2022.

The talks could begin this spring.

Everyone must be concerned “that we take the path to the European Union together,” said Baerbock at a press conference.

“Progress must be made quickly” from “reform meter” to “reform meter”.

In Sarajevo, Baerbock once again made a commitment to all six states in the Western Balkans that want to join the EU.

She wants the six states “to be able to join; the conditions for this must be created.”

Here, too, the leitmotif of the trip falls into place: “Enlargement is a geopolitical necessity,” but not only because it “makes Europe stronger” and “there will then be no more gray areas.”

At the press conference in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Baerbock is confronted with the consequences of Russian attempts to influence.

The President of the Republic of Srpska, Milorad Dodik, who is seeking a secession, awarded Vladimir Putin with a medal last spring.

Just recently, Dodik also visited Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and Putin.

Dodik had commented on X Baerbock's visit in a derogatory tone: She had only come to "collect points"; Bosnia-Herzegovina would receive EU negotiating status anyway.

Baerbock does not address this in the press conference, and her counterpart Elmedin Konakovic says there is no need to comment on every comment.

Incidentally, the Foreign Minister notes, Dodik "agreed to the anti-money laundering law between his two visits to Lukashenko and Putin."

Baerbock doesn't mention Dodik's name, but everyone knows who she meant when she explained that they wanted Bosnia-Herzegovina to "belong in the EU as a whole country."

She calls violent changes to borders “poison” and “fantasies of division” will be clearly identified.

As in Podgorica, Baerbock is also following the local news in Sarajevo, which currently revolves around the wiretapping scandal in the Bundeswehr - and the tense German-French relationship.

At the end of her Balkan trip, she briefly took a detour via Paris after the recent discord surrounding Macron's considerations for deploying ground troops in Ukraine.

The visit to the newcomer to the French Foreign Ministry, Stéphane Séjourné, will take place without a press conference.

As a precautionary measure, she is already being asked in Sarajevo about her visit to Paris.

A deep friendship and connection, she said, is also expressed in the fact that people don't always agree.

If you always agree, “then something is wrong.”

And a deep friendship also means that you “pull together and nothing can separate you.”