Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, a well-known figure on regional policies, has commented on the statement by Serbian Minister Snezhana Paunović, after she said days ago that she would have “ethnically cleansed Kosovo” in 1998 if she had been in the position of the war criminal Slobodan Milošević.
Bildt says that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić cannot remain passive in the face of this.
“This is scandalous for a member of the Government of Serbia. Of course, it does not help the country’s European perspective on the contrary. I do not believe that President Vučić can remain passive in the face of this,” he wrote.
The Government of Serbia has not distanced itself from Paunović’s statement; on the contrary.
Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Dačić, who is also the president of the Socialist Party of Serbia, the party to which Paunović belongs, defended her statement.
He described the attacks against Minister Paunović as “shameful and hypocritical,” saying that those accusing her of “allegedly inciting ethnic cleansing” have for years remained silent about the “ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo.”
Paunović herself has not backed down from the statement despite reactions from Brussels.
She reinforced her position, saying that she “does not give up” on the policies of the Socialist Party of Serbia — the party led by Milošević in the past and by Dačić today — which she has been a member of since 1992.
“We are the party that led Serbia in extremely difficult historical circumstances, the party that made great sacrifices — the name of which has been mentioned the most in The Hague,” she wrote on social media.
