The EU failing in Bosnia

Here is a comment I wrote in response to an article by Daniel Korski for the European Council on Foreign Relations on the EU and Bosnia. Below is a link to Daniel's article and the comments it prompted. Below that is my comment.

http://ecfr.eu/content/entry/commentary_korskibosniathirdoption/

The EU should be the international actor best placed to help Bosnia out of its by now habitual crisis. It has the most important and worthwhile carrots to offer. Beyond visa-free travel, an immediate reward of great relevance to most Bosnians, the benefits of EU integration, economic, political and social, are well-tested throughout Mediterranean and Central Europe. Most Bosnian leaders, of all ethnic stripes, as well as ordinary Bosnians, appreciate that. Also, the reality is that there is no one other than the EU that can help Bosnia. For the past decade American administrations have, understandably, been keen to shift responsibility for the Balkans on to their European allies. This is unlikely to change. The EU cannot pass the buck. No one else wants it.

But the dysfunctional mess of Bosnia’s constitutional set-up, its inability to meet the requirements of EU integration, means that Bosnia is indeed not at a point where it can be treated as a normal pre-accession country. The EU needs to adopt a more muscular approach to Bosnia if it is to have any chance of tackling the country’s chronic problems.

And that is where the EU has been failing. For years now the intention has been for the OHR to hand over to a beefed up EU Special Representative’s office. Yet after all this time they are still not ready. Where is the beef? What mechanisms will the EUSR need? This has been much discussed, but the question of how the EU would take over responsibility has just been allowed to drift.

One issue had been the relationship between the EUSR and the European Commission, which holds the crucial purse strings. This should have been resolved now that the newly established EU High Representative for foreign affairs also sits in the Commission. It might have been encouraging that Lady Ashton chose to visit Bosnia and the Balkans so early in her tenure, as a signal of the importance that the EU attaches to the region.

Yet the lesson is probably rather less encouraging. Ashton’s visit to the Balkans probably signals that, like Solana before her, she has realised that the Balkans is the only part of the world sufficiently uninteresting to the larger member states that she will be able to take the lead for the EU there. Her visit was also distressingly reminiscent of Solana in the string of meaningless platitudes she mouthed about the road to the EU etc. etc. All from the same dull lexicon of Brussels spokesperson’s drivel. Don’t expect Paris, London and Berlin to let her take the lead in the Middle East, for example. In foreign policy terms, Bosnia and the Balkans represent the crumbs that have been left to the Brussels foreign policy establishment.

And that, unfortunately, is why the EU is so ineffectual in Bosnia. Because it just does not care enough to devote the attention and energy that is needed. Let’s hope Ashton may emerge from her current difficulties in Brussels strengthened and with the determination to give Bosnia the attention it needs.