EU's Juncker: West Balkans need EU perspective to prevent risk of new wars

STRASBOURG: The European Union needs to open up to accepting new members from the Western Balkans to avoid the risk of a new war in the region, the head of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker told the European Parliament on Tuesday.

"If we do not open up to countries in that highly complicated an tragic region, and if we do not open up a European perspective to them, we will see war returning to that area as we saw in the 1990s," Juncker said.

"I do not want to see war retuning to the Balkans and so we need to open up to them," he said.