EU will never accept the break-up of Bosnia: Ashton

(BELGRADE) - European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton on Thursday said that the 27-nation bloc would never accept the break-up of Bosnia.

"Let me be clear, Bosnia and Hercegovina can only join the EU as one country by speaking in one voice," she said here on the second leg of a Balkans tour.

"The EU will never accept the break-up of Bosnia and Hercegovina."

Bosnian Serbs recently passed a law making it easier to hold referenda, raising expectations that Republika Sprska, the Bosnian Serb entity of the ethnically-divided nation, could be seeking a vote on independence.

Post-war Bosnia consists of two highly autonomous entities -- the Serb-run Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. Each has its own government.

Bosnian Serbs have refused to strengthen Bosnia's central institutions, a move sought by the international community to make the country more functional.

Such a vote could shatter the 1995 Dayton peace accord which ended the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, in which about 100,000 people died.

Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik said a secession vote was not on the agenda for now.

Ashton, who spoke in Belgrade after visiting Sarajevo earlier in the day, also stressed that Kosovo is "an integral part of the EU's Balkans strategy".

"Kosovo must be enabled in a pragmatic way to participate in regional cooperation ... The EU as a whole is clear that the future of Kosovo is European," she said.

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008 but Belgrade has refused to recognize it and continues to treat the region as a breakaway province.