Posted on 02/17/2007 9:41:07 PM PST by LjubivojeRadosavljevic
The EU should become the central international player in Bosnia, with a Special Representative taking over the responsibilities of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) which should be closed this year.
Ensuring Bosnia’s Future: A New International Engagement Strategy,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the dangers Bosnia faces in 2007, after a very difficult 2006 and with new tensions looming with the approach of Kosovo’s final status decision. At risk are the survival of a unified Bosnia and the stability of much of the Western Balkans, as the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), responsible for guiding implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, meets on 27 February to decide the way forward.
“A great deal has been achieved in the past eleven years, but ethnic nationalism remains too strong for the international community to declare victory and leave”, says James Lyon, Crisis Group Senior Adviser. “With the OHR’s credibility and influence undermined, however, it is time for the EU, always seen as the ultimate anchor for a stable Western Balkans, to become the active core of the international effort in Bosnia.”
Much remains to be done to implement Dayton and for Bosnia to become a candidate for genuine European integration. Constitutional and police reforms are essential if Bosnia is to be viable. Changes in the judicial, military, public broadcasting and educational systems are also needed. Many reforms that have been passed have not been fully carried out. The notions that Bosnia, which is still badly scarred by the 1992-1995 war, could be treated as any other applicant and that the mere attraction of EU membership at a distant date would suffice to overcome its ethnic polarisation have proven mistaken.
OHR responsibilities should be transferred to the EU and exercised through its Special Representative (EUSR), and to enable time for planning and handover, the OHR-EUSR transfer should be firmly committed to at the February PIC meeting. However, OHR’s special “Bonn powers”, by which it could impose legislation and remove elected officials, have become effectively unexerciseable and should be scrapped.
The new EUSR should rely on existing mechanisms such as the EUFOR military presence and the EU Police Mission (EUPM) and have available much larger EU funds, reinforced with bilateral aid, and use – and withhold – them as necessary to persuade Bosnian politicians to make tough decisions and compromises.
“Over time, if the inducements and disincentives are substantial enough, applied with the requisite decisiveness and political skill, and complemented as they must be by a heavily engaged U.S., they can change political dynamics so that Bosnians begin to take the initiative themselves,” says Sabine Freizer, Crisis Group’s Europe Program Director.
These guys keep insisting on keeping Humpty Dumpty together.
When I saw that, I hoped they meant "heavily engaged" diplomatically, not militarily.
Sometimes, I'm a dreamer and just a child at heart, too.
"Surrender? NO! I have not yet begun to party parley!"
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