GUARDIAN (UK)
Ian Bancroft
Nationhood beckons
May 31, 2008 4:00 PM
With a compromise over police reform paving the way for the eventual signing
of a stabilisation and association agreement (SAA) on June 16, Bosnia and
Herzegovina has finally taken its first step towards future membership of
the EU.
This important juncture provides an opportune moment at which to reconsider
and reconfigure international involvement in this still fragile country.
Whilst intensive engagement remains essential for further reforms, Bosnia
and Herzegovina is ready to make the transition from being an international
protectorate to a prospective EU member state.
Steps should therefore be taken to close the much derided Office of the High
Representative (OHR), terminate the Bonn powers and transfer all
responsibilities for implementation of the Dayton peace agreement (DPA) and
Euro-Atlantic integration to an expanded and strengthened EU Special
Representative (EUSR).
In late February, the peace implementation council (PIC), which oversees
implementation of the DPA, indefinitely extended the OHR's mandate beyond
June 2008, the previously planned closure date. In refusing to set a new
deadline, the council hoped to avoid further undermining the OHR's standing
by instead outlining a series of technical and political objectives that are
first to be achieved.
The continued erosion of the OHR's credibility and influence, however,
combined with the dilution of its enforcement capacity, has contributed to
the growing impotence of the Bonn powers. No longer capable of being
exercised effectively, particularly for removing elected officials or for
imposing legislation, the Bonn powers - the prime justification for
retaining the OHR - have been rendered superfluous and should therefore be
terminated.
Nevertheless, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains unprepared for full-scale
international disengagement. Necessary and important reforms - educational,
judicial, public broadcasting, military and economic - will continue to
require international facilitation, coordination and oversight. Though the
lure of EU membership has often proved insufficient to induce difficult and
contentious policies, in part because potential gains from membership don't
benefit politicians in the short term, it still constitutes the most
effective framework for catalysing reform.
As such, the OHR's responsibilities should be transferred to the EUSR,
thereby making the EU the key international player in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. The basis for this is already in place - the high
representative has, since Lord Ashdown's tenure, simultaneously functioned
as the EUSR, co-operating closely with EUFOR and the EU police mission;
whilst the signing of an SAA allows for increased financial and technical
assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Accordingly, planning for a reinforced
and more decisive EUSR must intensify before the PIC steering board meets
again in June.
In order to contend with the plethora of challenges that remain, the EUSR
requires a new mandate and greater capacity, including an expanded office
and budget. Without the Bonn powers, the EUSR must more assertively deploy
its soft powers, withholding assistance where and when such inducements fail
to encourage compromise and progress, as was practiced in Croatia earlier
this year. The EU should also exploit a broader range of policy tools and
instruments, based upon the rigorous methodologies successfully employed in
Romania and Bulgaria, adapted to the particularities of Bosnia and
Herzegovina. By doing so, the capacity of domestic institutions will benefit
from assuming intensified ownership of the reform agenda.
Strengthening the EUSR will also contribute to the development of a more
effective common foreign and security policy and will serve to reinforce the
European perspective in the western Balkans, at a time when events in Kosovo
pose significant challenges. To complement this development, the EU should
immediately consider candidate status for Bosnia and Herzegovina and ensure
greater financial resources, both through the instrument for pre-accession
assistance and through bi- and multilateral donor support, particularly for
infrastructure projects and economic development.
If transition and local ownership remain the overriding goals, as PIC
recently reiterated, then the time has come to transfer the OHR's
responsibilities to the EUSR, dispensing with the Bonn powers in the
process. Continuing to treat Bosnia and Herzegovina as an international
protectorate as opposed to a future EU member state will only continue to
stifle domestic capacity building - "capacity sucking-out" in the words of
Francis Fukuyama - and inhibit the development and consolidation of a
functional democracy.
It is clear that the Bonn powers are a now an untenable and obsolete way of
reforming Bosnia and Herzegovina' s political dynamics. With the expected
signing of an SAA on June 16 providing the platform for more extensive
European engagement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the PIC should now move to
close the OHR "in the shortest possible time".
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