Rehn tells Serbia to stay clear of Bosnia

Serbia will not be able to sign a pre-accession pact with the EU if it continues interfering in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, Olli Rehn, the European commissioner in charge of enlargement, has said.

The commissioner also urged Bosnia’s politicians not to listen to the "siren calls from Belgrade or Moscow".

The warning came less than a week after Rehn and Serbian President Boris Tadic put their initials to a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), seen as a first step on the road to eventual membership of the European Union.

In an interview with European Voice, Rehn said that he had conveyed the message to Tadic the previous Wednesday (7 November).

"We have made it clear that we expect that Serbia will not interfere in the domestic politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina," Rehn said.

Public attention has focused on another condition Serbia must fulfil before it can sign the SAA, full co-operation with the UN’s war crimes tribunal in The Hague. This demands "concrete steps" to apprehend persons indicted for war crimes, above all Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic, and to transfer them to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The warning on Bosnia will give bite to the condition of good-neighbourly relations Rehn laid out in his annual enlargement report presented last week (6 November).

Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica of Serbia is a close ally of Milorad Dodik, the prime minister of the Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska), and has supported Dodik’s refusal to agree to a reform of Bosnia’s ethnically fragmented police, which is a precondition for the EU to agree Bosnia’s SAA.

Dodik has also suggested that Republika Srpska could seek independence or union with Serbia should Kosovo declare independence from Serbia, a step expected as early as next month. He suggested to Bosnian Serb television that Serbia should be compensated if it lost Kosovo, a clear reference to the Bosnian Serb Republic.

Printers in the Bosnian Serb capital Banja Luka have reportedly been asked by the government to submit bids for the printing of ballots for a referendum on secession.

Rehn has been criticised in the Bosnian press over his decision to initial Serbia’s SAA while holding off on Bosnia’s.

The commissioner said that this was the "last chance" for Bosnia’s leaders to come to an agreement on police reform or else the EU would have to "seriously reconsider" its policy towards the country. Bosnia was in danger of becoming "a failed state" with "failed leaders", he said.

Rehn also said that the situation in Bosnia would be discussed at next week’s meeting of EU foreign ministers (19 November).

About the difficult accession talks with Turkey, Rehn said that he hoped that two more negotiation chapters will be opened before the end of this year. The opening of new chapters was in effect vetoed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who made it conditional on the establishment of a group of "wise persons". It now appears that such a reflection panel will be agreed at a meeting of EU leaders in December.

Sarkozy told leaders of the European Parliament’s political groups on Tuesday (13 November) that he will not end talks aimed at bringing Turkey closer to the EU during France’s presidency in the second half of 2008. But he said that he would only allow negotiations on policy areas which could lead to a privileged partnership with the EU rather than full membership.

According to Martin Schulz, leader of the Socialist group, the French president said that he would stop negotiations in five areas that could lead to membership.

Sarkozy also said that he was the only EU leader who was "prepared to tell the truth" that Turkey would not join the Union.

Serbia will not be able to sign a pre-accession pact with the EU if it continues interfering in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, Olli Rehn, the European commissioner in charge of enlargement, has said.