A European Union summit held in a captivating coastal metropolis in Greece greater than 20 years in the past would have largely been forgotten by now had it not been for a seemingly credible promise of a greater future for the Balkans. On the Thessaloniki summit of 2003, the EU expressed assist for “the European perspective of the Western Balkan nations,” which has since been taken by Brussels and regional actors as marking a brand new chapter within the bloc’s strategy to the Balkans.
The summit supplied the post-Yugoslav states an assumed highway map to EU membership. In a extremely bureaucratized endeavor, states had been to bear a prolonged means of aligning nationwide laws with the EU on a bunch of points—from human rights to financial reforms to mental property. Successive reforms had been to be rewarded with visa-free journey; candidate standing for EU membership; accession talks; and, finally, full membership.
But 22 years later, one such state, Bosnia and Herzegovina, has did not implement these reforms, and accession talks are nowhere in sight. Bosnia’s EU bid dangers changing into counter productive. Courting the EU has allowed Bosnian politicians to evade accountability for enhancing the on a regular basis lives of residents. Worse, they’ve framed each bureaucratic step as a significant leap towards EU membership, whilst a few of these steps have eroded Bosnian democracy.
At this level, taking a break from Bosnia’s unrealistic EU bid could possibly be one of the simplest ways to drive the nation’s leaders and their constituents to take accountability for his or her nation’s democratic future.
Following the Bosnian Struggle, the prospect of a path to higher stability by means of EU integration supplied hope. The nation was present process a number of simultaneous transitions—from conflict to peace, from socialist authoritarianism to multiparty democracy, and from command to market economic system.
As postwar rebuilding took its course, the deficiencies of the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the conflict in 1995 started to sink in. The accords instituted a Byzantine political system characterised by ethnic illustration and vetoes at a number of ranges of governance. In essence, any resolution made on the state-level is topic to vetoes and trade-offs to make sure that lowest-common-denominator selections are adopted.
A serious trade-off at Dayton was that Bosnian Serb separatists got a regional political entity—Republika Srpska—and veto powers on the state-level in alternate for remaining in Bosnia. The nation’s territorial integrity was maintained and affirmed, however separatists assumed main levers of energy. The insurance policies of separatism continued by means of different means—hollowing out the state-level establishments whereas build up Republika Srpska on the expense of the state.
EU membership was extensively seen because the panacea for Dayton’s shortfalls. The thought after the Thessaloniki summit was that Bosnia would undertake reforms consistent with the EU acquis, enhancing state-building and fulfilling standards for eventual membership. EU strain was supposed to function a catalyst for home politicians to undertake troublesome selections in Bosnia and institute reforms, with the nation’s eventual membership within the EU because the prize. With little consensus in Bosnia on home and international coverage after the conflict, becoming a member of the EU appeared to be a uncommon problem that could possibly be agreed upon.
As NATO supplied much-needed safety in postwar Bosnia, EU membership appeared the plain subsequent step towards a extra affluent, European-aligned future. Bosnia’s European integration course of supplied a plethora of advantages, together with entry to EU funds; the power for Bosnians to work, examine, and journey extra simply within the EU; and, maybe most significantly, the notion of accelerating Bosnia’s safety. For a small, postwar nation, EU alignment appeared to vow financial advantages with little prices.
Nonetheless, the membership highway map’s vagueness misled Bosnian officers and the general public into considering that full membership advantages had been nearer than they really had been. Now, 22 years after the Thessaloniki summit, Bosnia continues to be ready for the EU to set a date to formally begin accession talks, although talks with Ukraine and Moldova started in June 2024. (Each nations had been far behind Bosnia within the integration course of.)
The drawn-out timeline for accession and inconsistencies from Brussels stay main sources of concern, and the optimism of the mid- to late-2000s is now lengthy gone. At this level, there are neither critical reforms in Bosnia nor a transparent highway map for becoming a member of the EU.
The truth is, each Bosnian officers and EU diplomats play together with the well mannered fiction that membership continues to be within the playing cards. Stating in any other case publicly would diminish the EU officers’ remaining leverage over Bosnia. Whereas Bosnia is a small nation for the bloc, the successor states to Yugoslavia had been as soon as referred to as Europe’s “black gap,” and the Balkans had been seen because the powder keg of Europe. Therefore, the accession of this area to the EU was additionally considered as a way of finalizing the method of EU enlargement and increasing the zone of peace and prosperity to the unstable Balkans.
Now, the absence of a highway map to membership implies that critical reforms will probably be much less possible. Bosnia’s huge forms serves as a clientelist community for politicians and ensures that watered-down reforms are adopted more often than not. The vested pursuits of the political elite, bureaucratic inertia, and a number of ranges of governance have pressured the nation right into a limbo.
Worse, Bosnia’s dedication to pursuing EU membership is now being weaponized to disrupt the steadiness that postwar Bosnia did handle to attain. In a exceptional twist, ethnic separatists are utilizing the mantra of EU acquis to undertake laws that chips away on the state-building achieved within the post-Dayton interval, which tried to offer completely different ethnic teams balanced political energy.
The brunt of accountability is with the present Sarajevo-based politicians who’ve justified their pursuit of energy on EU grounds. Three Sarajevo-based political events—the Social Democratic Occasion, Our Occasion, and Individuals and Justice—changed the influential, conservative Occasion of Democratic Motion within the Parliamentary Meeting of Bosnia and Herzegovina in early 2023. In doing so, they fashioned a coalition with Republika Srpska’s Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik and Bosnian Croat hard-line chief Dragan Covic. To justify empowering these ethnic separatists, these three events insisted that the alliance with Covic and Dodik would allow them to move laws that will advance Bosnia’s EU bid.
However that’s not what occurred. As an alternative, Covic and Dodik grew extra highly effective, advancing an agenda that has solely taken Bosnia farther from the European Union.
Till just lately, the publish of Bosnia’s minister of safety was given to a Dodik ally and a extremely controversial determine. The top of the state-level police company is a Dodik ally. The Border Management Authority, till just lately, was below Covic’s cadres. Police in Republika Srpska are below Dodik’s management. A extremely influential member of Dodik’s social gathering was additionally appointed because the chief of Bosna’s Oblique Taxation Authority, additional entrenching the social gathering’s affect. Handing over of key positions in finance and safety to Dodik and Covic has allowed the separatists to nominate loyalists within the safety and monetary equipment of the state.
Moreover, for years, Covic spearheaded the hassle to entrench ethnic voting in Bosnia. As a result of Croatia has a veto over Bosnia’s EU accession, the nationalist Croatian authorities can use this menace to again Covic’s efforts. This implies, paradoxically, that Bosnia’s EU accession course of has given Croatia leverage that it may use to consolidate ethnic-based illustration.
Croatian Overseas Minister Gordan Grlic Radman has repeatedly hinted at this, saying in Might, for instance, that “[i]t is important that political actors in Bosnia and Herzegovina … acknowledge … Croatia’s efforts to make sure Bosnia and Herzegovina’s European path.” Now, Covic and Zagreb are utilizing this energy to insist on electoral reforms in Bosnia that may, in observe, assure that Covic’s Croatian Democratic Occasion retains a seat within the nation’s three-person presidency and stays an irreplaceable social gathering in future governments.
On August 6, Dodik was stripped of his presidency by Central Electoral Fee for his failure to adjust to the rulings of the worldwide envoy overseeing the Dayton Settlement. However his elimination doesn’t change the battle inside Bosnia’s political system. Even now, Dodik has mentioned that he intends to stay in workplace and attraction the ruling so long as he has the assist of the Republika Srpska parliament.
As an alternative of ready on the EU to resolve its issues, Bosnia ought to discard the hope that membership is close to and focus by itself growth with its personal present assets. Whereas Bosnia’s financial cooperation and academic exchanges with the EU ought to proceed, pausing the nation’s membership bid would obtain a minimum of two aims.
First, it could inform the Bosnian public and voters an inconvenient reality. Bosnia’s full membership is unlikely within the foreseeable future, each as a result of the present political system impedes critical reforms for membership and since the political dynamics inside the EU have shifted in opposition to additional enlargement.
Second, it could permit Bosnian decision-makers, opinion leaders, and residents to focus their priorities on enhancing on a regular basis requirements of residing slightly than assembly EU-imposed reforms. The nation may additionally weigh which EU-backed reforms are worthy and that are merely not in Bosnia’s long-term pursuits.
Moreover, clearing the fog of unfounded expectation of the EU as a panacea could be important to Bosnia’s progress. By reiterating the EU membership narrative, Bosnian politicians have, for years, outsourced accountability for tackling present challenges by diverting consideration to Brussels. This may drive Bosnia’s politicians to give attention to bread-and-butter points reminiscent of tackling the rising costs of meals, housing, and utility payments.
For years, Bosnia’s key international aims had been membership in NATO and the EU. Becoming a member of NATO stays the nation’s precedence, and that is the place the USA can convey Bosnia below its safety umbrella and safeguard peace within the Balkans.
Nonetheless, in Bosnia’s present state, and at this fee, EU membership bid is not price it. Accepting that membership is actually off the desk for the foreseeable future and pausing the bid would put an finish to the expectation that Brussels will resolve Bosnia’s challenges. Extra importantly, it could result in a extra open debate about how finest to utilize the prevailing assets within the nation.
