Bosnia starts its long journey to the EU

Bosnia and Herzegovina initialled a pre-accession agreement with the EU on Tuesday (4 December) after its leaders agreed a series of measures required for closer ties with Brussels.

The measures include an action plan for police reform and slightly modified rules of procedures for Bosnia’s council of ministers and parliamentary assembly.

Agreement was reached in the course of just a few days and ended more than a year of policy paralysis in the country, the last in the western Balkans to initial a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA).

Brussels and Sarajevo had concluded technical talks on the SAA in December 2006 but were unable to initial it because of the political blockage.

Olli Rehn, the enlargement commissioner, was in Sarajevo earlier this week (3-4 December) to put his initials to the pact. Formal signature, which has to be approved by member states, is expected in a few months’ time and will require additional efforts from Bosnia’s fragmented leadership. Rehn called on Bosnia’s leaders to "build on the positive momentum" and deliver on the EU integration agenda.

Matthew Rycroft, the UK ambassador to Bosnia, told European Voice that the political agreement was a "resolution of the short-term crisis" but that underlying problems remained. Observers now expect attention to shift to constitutional reform, which is required for Bosnia to become a credible candidate for EU membership.

The agreement on police reform foresees that within six months Bosnia’s fragmented police forces will be co-ordinated by a central body.

Simplified decision-making rules had been imposed in October by Miroslav Lajcák, the international community’s high representative for Bosnia, who also serves as the EU’s special representative to the country, after several deadlines for police reform had passed without agreement. Lajcák’s move triggered a political crisis which led to the resignation of Prime Minister Nikola Špiric, a member of the party which runs the Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated part of Bosnia.

Milorad Dodik, the prime minister of Republika Srpska, opposes any measures that would curtail Serb autonomy as set out in the 1995 Dayton peace agreement. Diplomats in Sarajevo said that the current crisis had been engineered by Dodik in pursuit of an agenda co-ordinated with Belgrade, which is struggling to maintain legal control over its province of Kosovo, and they expect problems for Bosnia as Kosovo declares its independence. Dodik rejects such charges but has toned down his rhetoric after Belgrade was warned by Western powers and the EU to keep out of Bosnian affairs.

Bosnian Serb resistance prompted Lajcák to dispatch his lawyers to explain his measures, a move which was widely seen as backtracking and characterised by the Bosnian Serbs as "negotiations". The compromise measures are weaker than those Lajcák initially wanted.

A senior diplomat in Sarajevo said that the EU had "softened" its conditionality in Bosnia just as it had in Serbia.

Bosnia and Herzegovina initialled a pre-accession agreement with the EU on Tuesday (4 December) after its leaders agreed a series of measures required for closer ties with Brussels.