The EU should be the international actor best placed to help Bosnia out of its by now habitual crisis. It has the most important and worthwhile carrots to offer. Beyond visa-free travel, an immediate reward of great relevance to most Bosnians, the benefits of EU integration, economic, political and social, are well-tested throughout Mediterranean and Central Europe. Most Bosnian leaders, of all ethnic stripes, as well as ordinary Bosnians, appreciate that. Also, the reality is that there is no one other than the EU that can help Bosnia. For the past decade American administrations have, understandably, been keen to shift responsibility for the Balkans on to their European allies. This is unlikely to change. The EU cannot pass the buck. No one else wants it.
But the dysfunctional mess of Bosnia’s constitutional set-up, its inability to meet the requirements of EU integration, means that Bosnia is indeed not at a point where it can be treated as a normal pre-accession country. The EU needs to adopt a more muscular approach to Bosnia if it is to have any chance of tackling the country’s chronic problems.
And that is where thee EU has been failing. For years now the intention has been for the OHR to hand over to a beefed up EU Special Representative’s office. Yet after all this time they are still not ready. Where is the beef? What mechanisms will the EUSR need? This has been much discussed, but the question of how the EU would take over responsibility has just been allowed to drift.
One issue had been the relationship between the EUSR and the European Commission, which holds the crucial purse strings. This should have been resolved now that the newly established EU High Representative for foreign affairs also sits in the Commission. It might have been encouraging that Lady Ashton chose to visit Bosnia and the Balkans so early in her tenure, as a signal of the importance that the EU attaches to the region.
Yet the lesson is probably rather less encouraging. Ashton’s visit to the Balkans probably signals that, like Solana before her, she has realised that the Balkans is the only part of the world sufficiently uninteresting to the larger member states that she will be able to take the lead for the EU there. Her visit was also distressingly reminiscent of Solana in the string of meaningless platitudes she mouthed about the road to the EU etc. etc. All from the same dull lexicon of Brussels’s spokesperson’s drivel. Don’t expect Paris, London and Berlin to let her take the lead in the Middle East, for example.
In foreign policy terms, Bosnia and the Balkans represents the crumbs that have been left to the Brussels foreign policy establishment.
And that, unfortunately, is why the EU is so ineffectual in Bosnia. Because it just does not care enough to devote the attention and energy that is needed. Let’s hope Ashton may emerge from her current difficulties in Brussels strengthened and with the determination to give Bosnia the attention it needs.

Dear Daniel,

I do not know where to start: Bosnia’s problems do not lend themselves to solutions that can be formulated in a few paragraphs.  But let me try and use this opportunity to get Kurt, and others who share his vision of Bosnia’s problems, to explain in more detail what it is that the rest of us are missing.

Central to Kurt?s argument is the claim that ?Bosnia is backsliding into political chaos and possibly even renewed ethnic conflict? (as he writes in an essay I read today) and that the risk of a return to armed conflict can ?no longer be excluded?.

Who does he expect to pick up arms? Which Bosnian leader would contemplate this today, in his view? What is the scenario for such an escalation? Does Kurt know things that EU military observers, who have reduced EUFOR to an almost negligable size and who do not feel guilty of irresponsibility, miss?

Please be concrete: which leader in Bosnia is contemplating a ?renewed ethnic conflict?? Which group is ready to return to war? Answering the question what the real threat is is essential to confront it
After all, to say that Bosnia is a country on the verge of disintegration is not a minor thing. If foreign or domestic investors would believe Kurt, they should rethink any future investment. Failing states also do not make credible candidates for EU accession. Most importantly, if the EU would believe Kurt, the debate about OHR’s mandate or existence would be a sideshow, a dangerous diversion even, from the real burning issue.  No OHR-type mandate would have stopped Bosnia sliding into war in 1992 by ?dismissing? Radovan Karadzic from his position as Serb leader.  For this force was needed. So if there is a real threat of armed conflict then the urgent priority would be to send substantially more foreign soldiers to prevent another tragedy from happening. Is this what Kurt calls for? 

I do not believe that there is any such threat.  As a result I believe it is deeply irresponsible to keep on talking in vague terms about it. This damages Bosnia on so many levels. But I hope Kurt will go beyond referring to ?popular fears? to tell us why he thinks this risk, which he argues did not exist in 2006, when Kostuncia was leader in Belgrade, exists today. This is too important an issue to be dealt with in passing. (for me own take on this, look here: http://www.esiweb.org/rumeliobserver/2010/02/06/new-wars-a-comparison-of-the-balkans-and-the-caucasus/)

One point where we might all agree: perhaps the EU could do a better job spelling out, again and again, that Bosnia will never be allowed to fall apart, even if this is obvious to any European policy maker. There are two obvious points to make: first, any Bosnian politician calling on people to pick up weapons would be treated as a criminal, not as a political interlocutor, whatever the circumstances. The first leader who orders somebody to shot would end up in a European jail, with no place to hide. Second, an independent RS would be as miserable a place as Transdnistria, or Abchasia in the 90s (without Russian help). The EU has not recognized Northern Cyprius in decades, and it never will. It will never recognize any alternative to the current Bosnian state either. As I said, this may be obvious; but sometimes the obvious benefits from being restated.

My second question to Kurt concerns his vision of a ?new and functional constitutional order?: what is this exactly? 

This is not, after all, a debate that started today. Is it the implementation of the April 2006 package of constitutional changes? Is it going further than the April package, towards abolishing the entities and the cantons?  Is is about turning the entities into mere administrative units, with no real autonomy?

Is a functioning Bosnia similar to today?s Belgium (a highly decentralized federal state)? Or to the Cyprus of the Annan plan (an even more decentralized state), which would have entered the EU in 2004, if the Annan plan would have been accepted? Is there a future for a complicated Federation inside the Bosnian state in Kurt?s ?functional constitutional order?? Is there room in it for a semi-autonomous Brcko district?  Would a functional Bosnia still be a federal state? 

These are not rhetorical questions. I accept Kurt?s argument that there is a lot that is dysfunctional about Bosnia?s current constitutional set up.  Things have to change profoundly, in the interests of Bosnian citizens and in light of Bosnia?s EU aspirations. But how does he see this being helped by a continued OHR presence? To do what: to impose constitutional change by decree? Threaten politicians who do not accept certain reforms (with sanctions or dismissal)?

I could now sum up the conclusions I draw from my own answers to these questions.  But I prefer to get Kurt to try to give the detail that might get most EU policy makers who do not share his threat assessment at present to change their mind: about realistic scenarios for a return to armed conflict; about the indispensable features of a ?functional constitutional order?; and about the role of a strong OHR to promote such constitutional changes.

Dear Daniel,

I appreciate your thoughts on the current state of affairs and also everyone else who has contributed here. You all make valid points that must be considered.

What I fear is happening right now is a stalemate situation. The issue is not that the EU must be the main actor (in fact - it must - the U.S. certainly will not be), but that it is handling the situation like the UN did during the Bosnia-Serbia conflict. Its role is that of a peacekeeper. Unfortunately, if we know our history, peacekeepers kept quiet while tensions grew and more Bosniaks were being killed - until, of course, the Clinton administration urged NATO to intervene. What worries me is that not enough attention is being placed to this region, particularly to Bosnia.

With the current U.S. administration placing a much weaker emphasis on the need to monitor the Balkans, it is essential that the EU take a very clear charge of the situation. As Barroso said in regards to Kosovo: “it is imperative for the EU to help find a solution because it is a European problem.” The same goes for Bosnia. Unfortunately I see too much attention by the EU being averted to Afghanistan (in which we have a much lesser interest in) than in this region. I think it is essential that we re-think our priorities and deal with Europe’s borders first.

Daniel, you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the “MJAFT!” movement in Albania and other such examples. Kosovo’s slogan of “the new Europeans” is another such example. What lacks in Bosnia is a movement rallying the youth towards EU integration. While my country (Albania) and Bosnia are both projected to join the EU by 2014, I cannot stop but think that Bosnia will lag a few years behind.

As far as visa-free travel goes, I simply do not see this a win-win situation (Europe/Balkans). Recently we have seen the problems of this for the countries that last year were granted visa-free travel (Macedonia and Serbia) - and now many of these “travelers” seek asylum elsewhere in Western Europe. There has to be tighter regulations in place for such issues; otherwise, expect about 20% of these “travelers” to be permanent residents in Western naitons.

Lastly, two points come to mind:
1.) It is encouraging to see Ashton place an interest in the region, and
2.) Never underestimate the potential of violence here. Mr. Knaus fails to see that words of “war” have been exchanged between Serbs and Bosniaks recently. These might be verbal feather-stones in the West, but in the Balkans I tend to err on the side of caution.

Dear Mikel,

Great comments, especially your concluding points.

Since you mention Mjaft, which I work with and greatly admire, I will only add something I already posted on ECFR’s Facebook profile and which concerns the Dosta! Movement in Bosnia (http://www.dosta.ba). In calling out for Bosnians to “produce a movement,” Korski’s article doesn’t mention that one already exists and has already achieved a lot.

Dosta means the same as Mjaft (Enough!) and even has the same logo, only in blue color. I think it’s important that the efforts made as well as the limitations faced by the Dosta Movement and similar initiatives in Bosnia be properly recognized.

Although active for years, the Dosta! Movement is best known as one of the coordinators of the 2008 protests in Sarajevo, when thousands of people took to the streets to demand responsibility from the government(s) in Sarajevo for failing to make the city safer (the protests were sparked by the murder of 16-year-old Denis Mrnjavac on a tram). Note that this was the largest civic protest in Bosnia since 1992. It went on for weeks, ultimately resulting in at least one official’s resignation and, more importantly, the change in power in the city of Sarajevo after local elections in October. Dosta’s film “Democracy in Translation” documents this and should be available for download on their website.

A few months later, the loathed prime minister of the Federation also resigned under public pressure (for charges of corruption), largely assumed to have originated from movements like Dosta or Akcija gradjana. 

Both of these and a number of other efforts point to existing capacity and potential for changes. Of course, there is still much that the Dosta Movement and the rest of civil society can and should do, especially in an important election year (I recently wrote on this for Transitions Online, you can see the full text here http://lgi.osi.hu/documents.php?id=3060).

However, I am afraid that a parallel with Otpor (and what it did in Serbia and how and why…) simply cannot and shouldn’t be drawn in the Bosnian context. Civil society in Bosnia is facing a whole new set of challenges, which require entirely different strategies, approaches, and goals. The circumstances in Bosnia are vastly different - the war, country structure, no one bad guy, no common vision/support in the international community… In many ways, their task is much harder than Otpor’s or Mjaft’s, yet they’ve done an amazing job.