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Bosnia is being pulled apart by continued ethnic division, William Hague has warned.
In an interview with the Independent, the shadow foreign secretary said that the former Yugoslav republic was in danger of slipping back into ethnic conflict.
He said: "You would think you were going to a place where the people have moved on and communities have got together 14 years later.
"But actually the atmosphere is grim and it is very difficult for the refugees who lost all their menfolk to move back there – it's a rather unwelcoming atmosphere.
"Politically, around them, their country is sliding backwards and further apart," he added.
Commenting after a trip to the Balkans, Hague said that while he did not expect a return to all out war, the situation was getting "grimmer" and violence was "not far below the surface".
An estimated 100,000 people died in the 1992-95 war that engulfed Bosnia as Yugoslavia collapsed.
Hague also raised the issue during a June debate on European affairs in the Commons.
He said Bosnia appeared to be "stuck" and that "important conditions go unfulfilled, few laws are passed, the central institutions are undermined and movement towards the EU is barely discernible".
During the debate, Hauge raised concerns that that the framework that helped Bosnia make remarkable progress since the end of the war in 1995 was being gradually dismantled.
"The lack of progress in Bosnia in the past three years has been accompanied by the downsizing of EUFOR's deterrent capacity.
"The international executive powers in Bosnia need to be retained for some time, along with a credible enforcement capability, as well as external guarantees for security and the rule of law," he said.
He also told the Commons that high-level US involvement was necessary to prevent "backsliding" in Bosnia
Hague recently spent two days in Srebrenica, the scene of the 1995 massacre of around 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at the hands of the Bosnian-Serb army.
In the interview with the Independent he repeated Commons his criticism of the EU response to the internal divisive pressures, calling it "weak and confused".
"It is moving slowly in the wrong direction and - despite all the efforts and all the bloodshed and all the sacrifices there - it's moving in the wrong direction without alarm bells sounding in most European capitals," he warned.
And he cautioned against the withdrawal of European forces from the country, insisting that internal cohesion could only be maintained with outside pressure.
"There should be no talk of withdrawing European forces. A strong signal should be sent that Europe will not ignore this situation," he said.
The looming crisis in Bosnia was also in danger of derailing EU plans to draw in Croatia, Serbia and Turkey.
He said: "If that doesn't work, there will be a hole in the heart of Europe of discontent, of people trafficking.
"People think the Balkans are what we debated in the 1990s and now we can forget about it. In fact, it's a crucial area in foreign policy in the next five to 10 years and will get a lot of emphasis in the next Conservative administration."
Hague also used the interview to outline Conservative plans to make a new National Security Council – modelled on the American system – the centre of decision making on the Afghan war.
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