Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, on getting this brief debate. I pay tribute to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, and Karen Pierce as envoys for the western Balkans. It was an imaginative appointment to make, and both have discharged the job with immense skill and results. I want to make just two points in a very brief speech. First, we must, as a country and as a continent, stay engaged, interested and involved in the whole of the western Balkans region. After all, we have seen in the past how what happens in the western Balkans can all too easily spill over into the rest of the continent and into a wider calamity. My second point is that in Europe we need to be collectively firm and decisive about the trouble being created by the leaders in Republika Srpska, a part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and those in Belgrade who are encouraging their particular wrecking tactics. We need to do this confidently and boldly, and the EU needs to do it with us, to act to stop the mayhem that the irresponsibility in the region is promising. The western Balkans must not become an adventure playground for inside and outside malicious actors, as it so often has been in the past, to our collective detriment.