Progress towards full democracy and commitment to the rule of law in the western Balkans is either stagnating or going backwards as the UK’s influence in the region declines, a Lords committee has said.



Russian and extreme Islamic influence is expanding, state capture of civil institutions is growing and support for EU membership is in decline, the international relations committee says. Some nationalist leaders point to the UK’s planned departure from the EU as a sign that European values are no longer relevant, it adds in a report.

Since the UK voted to leave the EU, its longstanding advocacy of the Balkans countries’ EU membership is not just paradoxical but untenable in the eyes of many, the report says. The Brexit decision also deprives the Balkans of their chief advocates in Brussels.

The peers say the UK must ensure that a western Balkans summit planned for London this year maps out a long-term security and political commitment to the region in conjunction with the EU. It urges the UK to act as an advocate for Balkan states such as Macedonia to be allowed to join Nato.

The Balkans summit is seen as one of the Foreign Office’s key chances to show Britain will remain engaged globally after Brexit. The Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan said he hoped the summit may lead a relaxation of the UK visa regime.

The committee, including some of the most senior foreign policy experts in the Lords, says the risk of diminishing UK traction comes at a time when some political leaders in the Balkans are making “regressive, dangerous and destabilising calls” for a redrawing of the national boundaries and secession. These politicians are pursuing the unfulfilled goals of the civil wars of the 1990s.

It says Russian soft power has expanded, partly by placing a large number of Russian Sputnik correspondents across the region who now service mainstream media. “The main agency sources of news, particularly in Serbia but also in Republika Srpska and Montenegro, is Sputnik,” it says.

Although Russian influence can be exaggerated and the BBC World Service is returning to the region, Moscow’s effect has been to “slow progress towards good governance and the region emerging as fully democratic”, the committee finds.

The Russian influence has coincided with growing “state capture of civil society” and especially the media. The Foreign Office has warned of “increased backsliding on freedom of expression in some countries in the region. This includes political interference in the work of public broadcasters, a lack of transparent public funding of media and intimidation of journalists”.

Moscow has been able to fill a vacuum created in part by unhelpful statements such as that made by the EU commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, who said EU membership was off the agenda for the Balkans “until some distant date in the future”.

Surveys show that far more Serbian citizens would prefer to be allied with Russia (67.2% in favour and 18.8% against) than join the European Union (50.9% vs 38.8%).

The committee says the decline in support for the EU is not in the UK’s interest “as EU membership is the most reliable path for western Balkan countries to achieve security, stability and prosperity. Post-Brexit the UK must continue wholeheartedly to support the accession ambitions of western Balkan countries.”