ZAGREB, December 22, 2018 – A former High Representative of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schwartz-Schilling, has suggested that the European People’s Party (EPP) should expel the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH) over what he described as its nationalist and destructive actions.
In a letter sent in late November to Manfred Weber, the chair of the EPP group in the European Parliament, Schwarz-Schilling says that it is time to consider expelling the HDZ BiH from the EPP because the party pursues a policy very similar to the policy of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) of Milorad Dodik, which was ousted from the Socialist International (SI) over nationalist activities in 2012, based on a report by the Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Previously, the Party of European Socialists (PES) refused to admit the SNSD.
European and democratic values should be defended within the EPP, otherwise destructive tendencies, based on ideas of ethno-national domination will prevail and eventually become a threat to the entire Europe, said the German politician whom the Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Ministry recently accused of being himself responsible for the Croat people in Bosnia and Herzegovina not being equal to the Serb and Bosniak peoples.
As in an open letter he recently sent with former High Representatives Carl Bildt and Paddy Ashdown to the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, Schwarz-Schilling claims that the HDZ BiH is “falsely depicting”, with the support of Croatia, the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the status of its Croat community.
More news on the status of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as on the latest in the relations between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and connected issues, can be found in our Diaspora section.
