As the international community watched the results of the October presidential and parliamentary elections, there was a palpable sense that the outcome of the results would give a strong indicator of the way in which the Bosnian State was heading. The predicate used by the international media was that a political stalemate between the front-running parties would indicate ethnic factionalism and a failure of the push for reform, while a clear-cut victory would only serve to facilitate the idea of EU accession.
Three months on, the overwhelming analysis remains the same. The US secretary of state laid the marker for the Western liberal internationalist agenda via promoting calls for unity and criticising the secessionist stance of Milorad Dodik, President of Republika Srpska (RS). This stance was echoed by Stefan Fule, the European Commissioner for enlargement. The impasse still remains; the Census Law is no nearer to execution and the quest for socio-economic propriety – the pass mark for accession – is rendered legless by the lack of functionality and cooperation amongst the cantons and up and down the governmental levels.
So beyond this outside projection, what are the chances of EU accession in the face of this deadlock and fragile peace? It is a delicate issue. If the Butmir Process, aimed at breaking the deadlock in Bosnia and Herzegovina, demonstrated anything, it was that fragile inter ethnic cooperation doesn’t need to be legitimised and codified through a new ‘peace process’ and that unfortunately, any such EU-US attempts are premature. This continuous push for ever closer union has created a jockeying amongst the ethnic parties for legitimacy and power outside the confines of the Bosnian constitution. There is a strong sense that international policy in the region is getting played and manipulated to the detriment of the other ethnicities, with the opening of a representative EU office in Brussels by the RS being a prime example of sovereignty based point scoring.
What this leads on to is the assumption that the road to accession is blocked more by the time-hungry and coerced liberal internationalist approach of the EU and UN institutions than by the problems on the ground. Although there is no denying that the solidification of Banja Luka in the October 2010 elections has presented another headache for the goal of a workable Bosnian state, the undeniable benefit that member state status brings has not allowed to gestate and evolve fully throughout the weaving inter-ethnic political systems because of the international community’s insistence on fault finding.
After 15 years, it is difficult to continue to hold the hands of the politicians and essentially act as an external arbitrator of good conscience. Voting power is vested in the hands of the people and the emphasis should be on enhanced promotion of civil society, which means stronger, economic and grass-roots partnerships. Also, stability in the region has to a large extent been governed by the promise of member state status. If there is any sort of common bond, then the prospect of accession is it. However, the benefits will most likely be outweighed by the intractability of creating a strong central state apparatus. The current international conception of the Bosnian state is not workable, nor should this outside evaluation be used as a prima facie lens for determining the current road to accession.
Benjamin is a freelance journalist interested in EU based peacekeeping initiatives in the Balkans. His main area of expertise is in energy security and renewable policy in Eastern Europe having worked in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Turkey.
Read related articles from atlantic-community members:
- Editorial Team: Bosnia: From Peacekeeping to Partnership
- Sabine Woelkner: Srebrenica Haunts Balkans 15 Years Later
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