Daniel Hannan: Bosnia: a Brussels Protectorate

“Bosnia has been turned into kind of a EU in miniature, where democratic self determination is struck down, so as to preserve at all costs the ideal of a multinational state. Right down to the blue star with a flags on, and a paraphernalia and symbolism that they've downloaded from Brussels.” Source: DanHannanMEP YouTube channel.

(see video below transcript)

Transcript:

Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. Some years ago I visited Sarajevo, and I met then EU commissioner, the High Representative, the colonial governor sort of speak. And he said - and I thought this was the perfect eurocrat remark – he said “I'm criticized by both sides: the Serbs and the Bosniaks are both attacking what I’m doing, so I must be doing something right.”

And I said to him no, if everybody is criticizing you that suggests to me that you are doing something wrong. There is the eternal gulf between the democrat and the Brussels official. Bosnia has been turned into kind of a EU in miniature, where democratic self determination is struck down, so as to preserve at all costs the ideal of a multinational state. Right down to the blue star with a flags on, and a paraphernalia and symbolism that they've downloaded from Brussels.

The way in which Bosnia would reach maturity would of course be when it could be democratic, when people could vote and have their decisions respected. Instead of which, in order to prepare it for EU membership, we are first teaching it to repress democratic self determination.

Translated by Jadranko Brkic