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Uncertainty reigns over Bosnia-Herzegovina at a critical juncture for its future within the EU

The failure of the talks in the Bosnian town of Butmir on November 18th showed a lack of commitment from political agents and the fragility of a State in which the confrontation between communities still hinder progress toward normalization and stability needed to address its future within the European Union.

On 20th October, representatives of the EU and U.S. acted as mediators between the most influential political positions of the three Bosnian communities’ constituents -Serbs, Muslims and Croats-, to initiate a round of talks on the military base of Butmir on the outskirts of Sarajevo. The third round held on November 18th certified the failure of the negotiations which ended without concrete agreements or commitments.

After a meeting later in Sarajevo, the Council for the Implementation of Peace (CIP), which brings together 55 countries and agencies whose mandate is to oversee the implementation of the peace agreements signed in 1995, issued a Statement stating that the conditions to close the OHR have not been reached. This figure was created to ensure compliance with the peace agreements and has the power, among others, to enact into law decisions and dismiss public officials if considered that certain actions endanger the achievement of the objectives and the spirit of so-called Dayton Agreements.

Just days before issuing such a Statement, the UN Security Council had voted to extend the mandate of some 2,000 units of the EU peacekeeping forces (EUFOR) in the country for a year, stressing that Bosnia "is still ethnically divided and presents a dysfunctional nature as a State".

The PIC meeting took place after weeks of intense diplomatic activity in which much was at stake in the process of rapprochement with the EU and the future of this State of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Among the items placed on the table was the constitutional and fiscal reforms, and the improvement of a complex, costly, slow and inefficient public administration.

Since last September, the political situation has been specially turbulent due mainly to the strong opposition that holds the entity of Republika Srpska (administrative entity controlled by the Bosnian Serb community) against the post of High Representative and resulted in the rejection of a series decision it issued. The confrontation, far from diminishing in intensity, has enhanced by the threat of boycott by the central institutions of that community.

The EU and the U.S. chose to start a round of negotiations between the respective political partners and propose for further discussion a package of reforms previously agreed between Brussels and Washington. These reforms proposed enormous changes within the constitutional draft whose ultimate aspiration is to promote the admission of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the EU, strengthening the State and end the mandate of the High Representative.

The failure of the round shows a clear lack of commitment among the warring parties, and yet condemned to understand each other if what is at stake is the survival of the State and its future within the EU. In view of not reaching any agreement, the international community only has two options: the first would be to strengthen the post of High Representative to address the still fragile unity of the so-called constituent communities, and the second one, which would be a more risky bet for the future, would close the OHR, give greater accountability to the State and demand a clear commitment from the EU position to facilitate the rapprochement between Brussels and Sarajevo.

The liberalization of visa which will take effect from January 2010 for Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia could be a crucial step if these advances, conspicuous by their absence, are achieved, in the light of what happened during the rounds of negotiations over the past two months.

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