Het lukt de VS en de EU niet om impasse in Bosnië te doorbreken (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A joint EU-US mediation effort aimed at ending years of political deadlock in Bosnia-Herzegovina ended on Wednesday (21 October) with no agreement on giving the central government a stronger role over the semi-independent Serbian and Muslim-Croat entities.
The talks were spearheaded by Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, who used to be the first international high representative in Bosnia after the 1992-1995 war and is now chairing the EU presidency.
Together with the US deputy secretary of state Jim Steinberg and EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn, Mr Bildt tried to convince Bosnian leaders to approve a constitutional reform making the state more functional and preparing it for eventual EU and Nato membership.
But representatives of the three main ethnic groups - Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats - rejected the proposals.
"Although some limited progress has been made further discussions will be required... and some of the parties will need to demonstrate greater determination and flexibility," Mr Bildt and Mr Steinberg said in a joint statement after the inconclusive talks.
Experts from both the EU and US will return to Bosnia next week to continue negotiations.
When announcing the initiative at the beginning of this month, the EU and US expressed "serious concern" about the political gridlock and warned that Bosnia risked "falling behind the rest of the region."
One of the sticking points is the office of the international high representative who still has executive powers in the country. Both the EU and the US would like to see the Bosnian leaders take over more responsibility and use less nationalistic rhetoric in order for the office to be transformed in a normal diplomatic office of the EU, preparing and monitoring the country for membership.
But fourteen years after the end of a war which caused over 100,000 deaths and became infamous for the 'Srebrenica massacre', Bosnia seems to be still a long way from self-governance.
For Milorad Dodik, the Prime Minister of the Serb entity - Republika Srpska, the office's executive powers are 'non-transparent' and in violation of human rights, as he writes in a recent letter sent to Mr Bildt. The office of the high representative can remove from power any officials, elected or appointed, without any hearings or right for appeal, and did so with over 200 persons since 1997, as Mr Dodik complains.
Despite wanting to see the office's powers downgraded, Mr Dodik strongly rejected the legislative package put forward by the EU-US mediators, saying it risked diluting the power of Republika Srpska. In the past years, he had repeatedly called for a referendum on separating from the Bosnian federation.
As for the Bosniaks and Croats, they rejected the proposals for not going far enough in strengthening the state institutions.
Under the 1995 Dayton peace accords, two separate entities were created - the Bosnian-Croat federation and Republika Srpska - linked by a common parliament, a three-member presidency and a council of ministers. However, the division of powers remains unclear, especially with the office of the international representative in place, and each side interprets it the way it suits best its own interests.