EU, NATO must back Western Balkan integration amid Ukraine war, says Slovenia

Slovenian President Borut Pahor said on August 29 that countries in the Western Balkans were at risk of instability because of the war in Ukraine and called for a swift accession for Bosnia into the European Union and the NATO alliance. 

Pahor told a forum that Brussels must reach a consensus to integrate the Western Balkans and should convince Serbia to choose the EU path over its alliance with China and Russia, a move that he said would benefit Bosnia and Kosovo, Reuters reports. 

"We don't want another Iron Curtain in Europe," Slovenian Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon also told the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia, saying a decades-old process to unite Europe had been halted by the Ukraine conflict and many European countries did not have the capacity to cope with fallout from the crisis.