When you walk through the streets of Sarajevo, it doesn’t really matter in which direction you look at the hills and slopes that surround the city. You can see white fields almost everywhere. These are not fields of trees or plants in blossom – they are graves. They stand for the people killed in the war. The Bosnian War claimed the lives of over 100,000 people in the early 1990s. Two million people were displaced. Tens of thousands of women were raped.

One of the darkest chapters of this war, the internationally recognised genocide of Srebrenica, has seared into our memory. The systematic murder of tens of thousands of Muslim boys and men – in front of the eyes of the world! In front of an international community which – it must be said clearly – failed at the time.

Allow me to reiterate very clearly here today that we are keenly aware of this responsibility.

Thirty years ago, the Dayton Agreement finally put an end to this suffering, to the war at the heart of Europe. It marked a historic milestone. It brought about a ceasefire, but beyond that was unable to eradicate the causes of the war. While it did create stability over the course of the past 30 years, it by no means succeeded in bridging all chasms. Nor did it ultimately manage to heal the wounds, let alone to serve as a starting point for a sincere reconciliation between the people of this ravaged country.

To some extent, this certainly is due to the structure of the Agreement itself. Dayton focused more on ending the fighting and violence and less on peace for a fragile state. The result was the price of cementing the ethnic proportional representation in the form of a treaty. However, it is definitely also due to political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who are only too happy to sing from the ethno-nationalist hymn sheet, in part to conceal that division is more useful to them than reconciliation or understanding, that is, often more useful in allowing them to pursue their own interests.

Furthermore, we often see that this agitation – for that is what it must be called – is incited in part by actors outside the country, above all by one actor that wants to redivide the world into zones of influence and is threatening Europe more actively today than since the end of the Cold War: by Russia.

Nevertheless, we can state today that even 30 years after it was signed, the Dayton Agreement guarantees stability. I visited all six countries of the Western Balkans in November. During my visit, I was accompanied by several fellow Members of the Bundestag, whom I would like to thank. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, I met High Representative Christian Schmidt, a former member of this distinguished chamber. He monitors the civil aspects of the peace process and his work is of great importance in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am very grateful indeed to Christian Schmid and would like to assure him of the Federal Government’s support for his work.

We agree that it remains essential to protect the fundamental principles of the Dayton Agreement and to preserve sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the state as a whole. Peace and stability at the heart of Europe are, and will remain, a duty for us.

That is why the institutions and the constitution in Bosnia and Herzegovina under the Dayton Agreement enjoy full trust. And that is why we, the Federal Government, and I hope the Bundestag, too, support the prospect of EU accession for Bosnia and Herzegovina and are continuing our endeavours to further this process.

Both today and when it was signed, Dayton merely marked the start of a process that was to bring the country into the EU through its own efforts. Decisive action by the stakeholders on the ground is needed beyond all borders to ensure joint coexistence. We also want to continue investing in these forces.

After all, we firmly believe that 30 years after the end of the Bosnian War, 30 years after Srebrenica, at a time when we are once again surrounded by geopolitical crises, this is an investment. An investment not only for Bosnia and Herzegovina, but for the Western Balkans as a whole. An investment for us, too, for us Europeans and us Germans. An investment in our security, freedom and prosperity.