Transatlantic disputes over trade, climate policy, defense spending, Iran, and free speech have certainly stressed the U.S.-Europe alliance. In the past, deft diplomacy has found ways to navigate those differences. Yet that comity is being severely tested as Europe takes steps to stifle American involvement in the Balkans.

Last month, for the first time, Europe and the United States failed to agree on the next international envoy to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This comes on the heels of the Trump administration signaling last year that it was ready to end 30 years of “heavy-handed international intervention” and transfer sovereign authority to the country’s elected leaders.

Europe pushed back. When it came time to vote for the new envoy, European diplomats rejected the Italian candidate backed by the United States in favor of a French official who prefers the status quo. It was a clear snub to Washington that anyone it supported, even a distinguished European diplomat, was a no-go for this job.

The State Department rebuked Europe for the “abdication of its own duty toward BiH…forcing the United States to reconsider its role…in Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Another recent try produced yet another standoff.

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Disagreement over Bosnia’s future has also spilled over into European Union efforts to undo a major U.S. gas pipeline project in the country. The investors, politically tied to President Donald Trump, lead a project to deliver American LNG (liquefied natural gas) and to displace regional dependence on Russian gas, an EU strategic imperative. No matter, the EU ambassador to Sarajevo warned Bosnia’s leaders that the project jeopardized its prospect for EU membership and €1 billion ($1.1 billion) in aid.

EU efforts to scuttle U.S. Bosnia policy, while self-defeating, are fair game. Scuttling American investors close to Trump risks a diplomatic row. But targeting investment projects of a sitting U.S. president’s family members is reckless.

In neighboring Serbia and Albania, U.S. Special Envoy for Peace Jared Kushner mobilized multi-billion-dollar projects in a capital-starved part of Europe. The involvement of President Trump’s son-in-law led EU officials to take a hostile interest, upending one project last December and seeking to upend the other.

In Serbia, Kushner planned to build a high-end hotel in Belgrade on the site of the ruined Yugoslav General Staff building bombed by NATO during Serbia’s brutal war against Kosovo’s Albanian majority. The project would help Serbs look beyond their war losses and focus on economic renewal.

Normally, Europe is quick to support reconciliation initiatives among former warring peoples. Not this time.

Instead, European institutions coordinated to kill the project, forcing Kushner to withdraw last December. Brussels’ gang-up began earlier that year when the European Parliament issued a resolution expressing “grave concern” over the Serbian government’s “removal of the [building’s] protected status as a cultural monument.”

Then, Brussels-based NGO Europa Nostra, primarily funded by the EU, issued its “firm opposition” to “paving the way for the construction of…the Trump Tower Belgrade.” A month later, the EU-funded Serbian Public Prosecutor’s Office sought jail time for the minister of culture for “abuse of office” by supporting the project.

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The military headquarters in question was built by Yugoslavia’s communist regime. By the 1990s it was the nerve center of the Yugoslav People’s Army’s genocidal campaigns against Kosovar Albanians, Bosnian Muslims, and Croats. Instead of celebrating the erasure of this sentinel of evil, Europa Nostra deems it an architectural “masterpiece…and cultural monument of national importance.”

A similar playbook is underway in Albania, where Kushner leads another luxury real estate project, this one on an uninhabited island that hosts a communist-era military base. Again, EU-funded NGO-led protests, labeling the project “incompatible with EU membership,” are enjoined by EU warnings.

The EU announced its “concerns to the minister of environment about the potential shortcomings of this project” and demanded it “terminate” the law on strategic investments. On cue, Albania’s special anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, funded by the EU, opened an investigation into the project.

Albania’s leftist Prime Minister Edi Rama fired back: “If it wasn’t Jared, they wouldn’t give a shit.”

In contrast, the EU is mum on the Spanish government’s plans to “transform” the Basilica of Fallen—the world’s longest basilica, with the world’s tallest cross—into a state museum. No communist military base is there, unfortunately for the monks.

This piece originally appeared in The National Interest