U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson has criticized statements by Serbian Minister of Public Administration Snežana Paunović, saying they demonstrate why Serbia’s bid to host the 2027 annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) should not be considered.
“These disgusting and inflammatory remarks by a leader in the Serbian government is precisely why the OSCE should not consider Belgrade’s bid to host the 2027 annual meeting,” Wilson wrote on X, arguing that the OSCE’s mission is to build consensus and stability in Europe, not revive ethnic tensions.
The comments came after Paunović said in an interview with the Belgrade-based newspaper Kurir that, had she been in the position of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević during the 1998–99 Kosovo war, she would have carried out the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians.
“I would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo,” Paunović said, while claiming she would have sought to force Albanians to leave for their “mother country” rather than carry out killings.
The European Union on Tuesday condemned the statement as “inflammatory” and said rhetoric that justifies or advocates ethnic cleansing has no place in Europe.
“Our main position and key principle is that there should be no place in Europe for rhetoric justifying and advocating ethnic cleansing,” EU spokesperson Anitta Hipper said, adding that such statements contradict European values of human dignity, reconciliation, accountability, and good neighbourly relations.
The EU also said the remarks contradict Serbia’s commitments within the EU-facilitated dialogue aimed at normalizing relations with Kosovo.
Paunović, a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), a party founded by Milošević in 1990, has faced criticism from Kosovo officials and Serbian opposition groups following her remarks.
Kosovo’s Minister of Social Welfare, Andin Hoti, accused Paunović of promoting ideas linked to Milošević’s policies, saying that calls for ethnic cleansing represent a continuation of the ideology that led to wars and atrocities in the 1990s.
Serbian human rights activist Nataša Kandić, founder of the Humanitarian Law Centre, also condemned the statement, saying that presenting ethnic cleansing as a political solution represents a return to the ideology of the 1990s wars.
The opposition Free Citizens Movement (PSG) called on Serbian Prime Minister Đuro Macut to dismiss Paunović, arguing that a government official who justifies the expulsion of people based on nationality cannot represent state institutions responsible for equality and the rule of law.
