ICG: New international engagement strategy needed for BiH

16/02/2007

The International Crisis Group warned on Thursday that early disengagement could put Bosnia and Herzegovina's survival as a unified state at risk.

(EUobserver, The Scotsman - 16/02/07; International Crisis Group - 15/02/07; FT - 07/02/07)

EU involvement is crucial to preventing Bosnia and Herzegovina from coming apart, says the ICG report. [EUPM]

To cement the gains of post-war reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the EU must become the central international player in the country by the end of this year, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said on Thursday (February 15th). It also warned that a move by the international community to leave the country could jeopardise regional stability.

The Brussels-based group's new 40-page paper, entitled "Ensuring Bosnia's Future: A New International Engagement Strategy", came out less than two weeks before a meeting of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) at the end of this month. The body, comprised of 55 countries and international agencies guarding the implementation of the Dayton Accords, is due to decide on the international community's future role in BiH.

The Office of the High Representative (OHR) must be closed by the end of this year and its Bonn powers -- allowing it to impose legislation and remove elected officials -- must be scrapped, the group said. Instead, the EU should take over direct supervision of the country, adopting a new policy to ensure that peace implementation and BiH's progress towards European integration remain on track.

"International policy in Bosnia is in disarray, and a new engagement strategy is required," the ICG said. "This is not the time to begin disengagement: Bosnia remains unready for unguided ownership of its own future -- ethnic nationalism remains too strong -- and 2007 promises new tensions with the approach of the Kosovo status decision."

That decision -- which the UN Security Council is expected to take within months -- will "test the very fabric of the Bosnian state," the think-tank said.

In particular, it cited threats by Republika Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik to call a referendum on the Bosnian Serb entity's status if Kosovo becomes independent. "An increasingly assertive Dodik is openly challenging international authority to oversee Dayton implementation and the construction of viable state-level institutions. For the first time since 1997 there is a real prospect the RS may do more than merely obstruct," the ICG warned.

The group recommended a series of steps the PIC, the EU and other international players should take.

Working in co-operation with partners in BiH, the new EU special representative (EUSR) should focus on the completion of constitutional reform and implementation of educational, economic, judicial, police and media reforms, as well as on arresting Bosnian war crimes fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, it said.

The PIC should also seek more generous donor support for economic development, job creation and infrastructure improvement in BiH and should "insist that Serbia publicly renounce all territorial claims" on its neighbour.

The European Commission must at least double the financial assistance to BiH and make sure that the allocation planned for 2010 is reached by 2008, the group said. It should also complete negotiations on easing the visa regimes for the Western Balkan countries by June and should "condition assistance to Serbia on its co-operation with international policy in Bosnia".