(AP) Bosnian officials and religious leaders on Wednesday denounced suggestions voiced by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his spokesman that the integration of Bosnia into the European Union will be challenging because of its large Muslim population.
Orban’s spokesman Zoltan Kovacs has tweeted that “the challenge with Bosnia is how to integrate a country with 2 million Muslims.”
During his long speech on Tuesday in Budapest, right-wing populist Orban said Hungary supports Bosnia’s EU bid, adding that as an EU member, Hungary had to mobilize a lot of energy to overcome “the enlargement fatigue that has taken hold of the European Union.”
“I am doing my best to convince Europe’s great leaders that the Balkans may be further away from them than from Hungary, but how we manage the security of a state in which 2 million Muslims live is a key issue for their security too.”
