European Parliament
Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck (ALDE ). –
(NL)
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like to object to Mr Posselt’s description of Lord Ashdown’s delegation as a liberal dictatorship. Whilst Lord Ashdown’s leadership was certainly energetic, I take exception to both the noun ‘dictatorship’ and the adjective ‘liberal’.
I would now like to turn to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has been a guinea pig for 15 years, and this is something of which the Bosnian, Croat and Serbian nations have been well aware. First, it was the guinea pig of a Communist state that was breaking up. Then it became a guinea pig for an EU which at the time, more than ten years ago, did not have real foreign or security policy. It was also a guinea pig for a NATO in search of a new mission and sadly also one for all those who feed off violence and war. In recent years, it has been a modern protectorate.
I hope that both the EU and the leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina will seize the prospect of a stability and association agreement to turn their country into a grown-up state, on the road to EU membership.

