How the Balkans are putting the EU’s standing on the line

For Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, Vučić is an opportunist above all else.

“There is a cynical calculation going on about how he can extract the maximum benefit from both sides. He is a Serb nationalist and it plays well with his voters if he can also be shown to be standing up for ethnic Serbs in Bosnia. Does he want to annex the Republika Srpska? I suspect not because that would actually bring down the wrath of the EU on his head in a way that would not suit his interests. But he’ll be quite happy to cause a certain amount of trouble.”