On 28 and 29 June 1991, during the meeting of the European Council in Luxembourg, the Heads of State or Government of the Twelve refer for the first time to the military and humanitarian situation in the Balkans.
On 30 June 1991, Jacques Poos, President-in-Office of the Council of the European Communities, writes to Ante Markovic, Prime Minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, President of the Republic of Serbia, Milan Kucan, President of the Republic of Slovenia, and Franjo Tudjman, President of the Republic of Croatia, to remind them of the commitments that they made during the European Troika’s visit to the Balkans.
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Außenminister der Bundesrepublik von 1974 bis 1992, beschreibt in seinen Erinnerungen die Anstrengungen der Europäischen Gemeinschaft zur Lösung des Konfliktes in Jugoslawien.
On 1 July 1991, the European Ministerial Troika — composed of Jacques F. Poos, Luxembourg Foreign Minister, Hans van den Broek, Netherlands Foreign Minister, and Gianni de Michelis, Italian Foreign Minister — reports on the outcome of its diplomatic mission to Yugoslavia.
‘I’d love to help, but I’m afraid of causing a massacre!’ (‘Death to all the rest’, ‘Independence for Macedonia!’, ‘A free Serbia’, ‘Long live Croatia’.) In July 1991, the French cartoonist, Plantu, considers the impotence of European diplomacy in the light of the deadly conflict in the Balkans.
„Jugoslawien: ,Es riecht verbrannt! – Sollten vielleicht mal nachschauen. – Es wird doch wohl nicht brennen! – Wer wird das Wasser bezahlen? – Und was ist mit Überstunden? – Nicht drängeln!‘“ Im Jahr 1991 veranschaulicht der französische Karikaturist Georges Million das Zögern und die vergeblichen Bemühungen der europäischen Diplomatie angesichts des Konflikts auf dem Balkan. Ganz oben auf der Drehleiter hält der deutsche Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl eine Feuerwehrspritze, während der französische Staatspräsident François Mitterrand mit der Handkurbel in der Hand versucht, den Motor zu starten.
‘The Yugoslavian knot. “… Can you untangle it …?”’ In August 1991, Opland, Dutch cartoonist, emphasises the impotence of European diplomacy faced by the conflict which is tearing the Balkans apart.
On 12 September 1991, the French weekly magazine L’Express speculates on the success of the Twelve’s attempts to use diplomatic mediation to end the violent conflict between the Serbs and the Croats in Yugoslavia.
On 15 January 1992, in an interview granted to the French daily newspaper Le Monde, Vladislav Jovanovic, Serbian Foreign Minister, criticises the Twelve’s attitude towards the conflict in Yugoslavia and offers his own point of view on the Yugoslavian crisis.
As the principles of the Carrington-Cutileiro peace plan are accepted by the three ethnic groups making up Bosnia and Herzegovina, the 8 April 1992 edition of French daily newspaper Le Monde describes how the efforts of the EEC Member States should help prevent war breaking out in this new state of the former Yugoslavia.
‘Can you all see properly?’ In 1992, the cartoonist Behrendt denounces the wait-and-see attitude adopted by Europe and the rest of the Western world towards the acts of genocide perpetrated in former Yugoslavia.
On 3 October 1992, Lord David Owen, European Union Co-Chairman of the International Conference on Former Yugoslavia, gives an account of his mission to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, emphasising human rights violations in the country.
In 1993, the German cartoonist, Walter Hanel, condemns the leaders of the European Union for their blindness to the atrocities committed during the war in the former Yugoslavia.
At a press conference held in Brussels on 3 March 1993, Manuel Marín, Vice-President of the Commission of the European Communities with responsibility for development cooperation policy, external economic relations with Mediterranean countries, Latin America, Asia and the ACP countries as well as humanitarian aid, announces the granting of a first tranche of emergency aid to the victims of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
On 8 November 1993, Alain Juppé, French Foreign Minister, and his German counterpart, Klaus Kinkel, submit to the Presidency of the European Union their suggestions for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
On 29 November 1993, at the United Nations (UN) Office in Geneva, the Foreign Ministers of the European Communities meet the political and military representatives of the conflicting parties in the former Yugoslavia. In the run-up to this meeting, Francis Briquemont, commander of the UN Protection Force in the former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR), Willy Claes, Belgian Foreign Minister, and Douglas Hurd, British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, emphasise the priority placed on transporting humanitarian aid to the victims of the conflict.
In late 1995, Antonio Gambino, foreign policy columnist for the Italian journal Affari Esteri, considers the West’s policy for the settlement of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia to be a failure.
‘Soon we are going to show our teeth.’ In 1992, while war has been ravaging the territory of the former Yugoslavia for a year, the cartoonist Behrendt portrays the helplessness of the United Nations, which, despite threatening the belligerents with economic and political sanctions, does not have the means to intervene militarily in the conflict.
‘Hello, we’re coming!’ Following the Serb offensive of 6 April 1992 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the cartoonist Behrendt deplores the slow deployment of UN forces on Bosnian territory.
Am 6. Februar 1993 berichtet die französische Tageszeitung L'Humanité über die Meinungsverschiedenheiten, die der Jugoslawien-Friedensplan von Cyrus Vance, dem Sondergesandten der Vereinten Nationen, und Lord Owen, dem Vertreter der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, zwischen den Mitgliedstaaten des UN-Sicherheitsrates hervorgerufen hat.
Following a new proposal to divide Bosnia into three ethnic states, revealed on 20 August 1993 by UN mediators Thorvald Stoltenberg and David Owen, the French daily newspaper Le Monde presents the ambiguous reactions of the Bosnian Muslim authorities.
Troop carriers from the British battalion of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) stationed in Stari Vitez, in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1 May 1994).
On 1 May 1994, British UN peacekeepers from the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) are deployed to monitor the movements of civilians at the Stari Vitez checkpoint in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
On 30 November 1994, the UN peacekeepers of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) patrol the streets of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in armoured vehicles during the visit of the United Nations Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
‘Memories of Srebrenica’. In 1999, the cartoonist Behrendt considers the powerlessness of the Dutch blue helmets of UNPROFOR to prevent the massacre of the Bosniak citizens of the town of Srebrenica perpetrated in July 1995 by the Bosnian Serb Army led by General Ratko Mladic.