Is Bosnia Backsliding Into Conflict, or Making Progress Toward EU Membership?
Andrew MacDowall Monday, Nov. 21, 2016
BELGRADE, Serbia—It’s a strange time for Europe. In September, the European Union’s 28 member states formally accepted Bosnia and Herzegovina’s application for membership. Yet the next month, as rhetoric around local elections and a referendum in the Balkan state rose to a fever pitch, some analysts and politicians once again raised the prospect that the country’s very existence was under question.
Pessimistic insiders in Sarajevo have been warning for years that Bosnia was on the brink of collapse, while optimists hope that an EU-led reform program will finally transform the country’s economy, society and stultifying political scene. A middle scenario would see more of the same: systemic dysfunction, but with piecemeal progress in some areas, and backsliding in others when it suits the political elite. The reality is that EU accession is a long way off, and there are substantial geopolitical roadblocks ahead.
In a referendum on Sept. 25, voters in the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska—one of the two largely autonomous entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina—overwhelmingly voted in favor of keeping Jan. 9 as the national day, in defiance of the country’s Constitutional Court. This seemingly arcane issue is in fact loaded, not only because the date is the anniversary of the Republika Srpska’s controversial foundation in 1992, in the run-up to the Bosnian War, and is seen as discriminating against Bosnian Muslims, or Bosniaks, and Croats. The vote has also been perceived as a serious challenge to the country’s unitary state and the constitutional settlement that brought an end to the war through the 1995 Dayton Accords, even though, soon after the election, the Republika Srpska’s parliament backtracked on the national day law.
“The credibility of the Constitutional Court has been severely undermined, ushering in a phase of legal uncertainty,” says Adnan Huskic, a Sarajevo-based political analyst. “This also means that the very structure of the Dayton Agreement is beginning to collapse.”
Some see the referendum as a dress rehearsal for a plebiscite on the Republika Srpska’s independence that its president, Milorad Dodik, has repeatedly threatened to hold in 2018. Huskic says that Dodik may have boxed himself in and find it difficult not to call the independence referendum.
Yet most analysts say that Dodik’s goal is not full-fledged independence, but bolstering his support within the Republika Srpska and extracting concessions from the increasingly weary international community, which still has oversight of Bosnia. Republika Srpska is barely contiguous and would struggle as an independent country, and Dodik has more power as a broker within Bosnia than the ruler of a poor rogue state in the Balkans. Most importantly, the international community will not countenance independence.
“Dodik knows better than anyone that the referendum on secession is a red line—he simply can’t go there,” says one diplomat from an EU country. “Dodik has absolutely no sense that secession is a political option. He knows if he goes for it, he’s finished.”
The national day referendum was widely seen as a gambit before local elections just a week later—and a successful one, as Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats regained its strong position in the region’s municipalities, after a period in which its hold on power had been tentative. A similar pattern unfolded in Bosnia’s other entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is dominated by Bosniaks and Croats.
One of the few things that most Bosnians of all ethnicities agree on is wanting to join the EU.
With the local elections, it seemed that nationalists once again triumphed by playing divide-and-rule. Serbs argue that Bosniak and Croat politicians play up the threat from the other two main ethnicities as much as their leaders do, creating a vicious cycle of attacking and defending national interests. This, in turn, allows politicians to perpetuate corruption and networks of patronage that have flourished over the past two and a half decades, while ignoring Bosnia’s huge economic and social problems.
“The local election results were marked by a return to the fore of the main nationalist parties, who have consolidated their positions and party structures,” says another EU diplomat. “Potential opposition coalitions remain either fragmented or discredited, or both. As the country looks toward the 2018 general elections, the jockeying for position will bring further manifestations of nationalist rhetoric.”
But Ivana Maric, a Sarajevo-based political analyst, says that the results revealed more nuances, and were warped by irregularities, fraud and media control, as well as what she calls “invented dangers” linked to ethnic tensions. “Nationalist parties received the highest number of votes, but the opposition parties and independent candidates also got a significant number of votes,” Maric says. “The voters have shown that they are not satisfied with the situation and that they want change.”
But with ethno-nationalist politicians of all stripes benefiting from the status quo, is that change likely to emerge? One of the few things that most Bosnians of all ethnicities agree on is wanting to join the EU. In recent years, Brussels has attempted to take a more active role in the country as the U.S. has turned its attention elsewhere. After years of unsuccessfully wrestling with the constitutional problems left by the Dayton Accords—including the fact that those who do not define themselves as Bosniak, Serb or Croat, such as Jews and Roma, cannot become president or take a range of other official positions—in late 2014, the EU launched a new reform agenda focusing on economic change. The emphasis is on improvements to the business climate and privatization, backed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—providing the clout of the major financiers of the cash-strapped Bosnian government.
One EU aim is delivering growth and jobs that are the priority for ordinary Bosnians, but another is the longer-term goal of increasing the role of the private sector and reducing that of government-sector jobs, in order to weaken the structures of patronage that keep the current political elite in power. The hope is that this will then clear the path for political and constitutional reforms, including those required for Bosnia to become an EU member, such as opening the presidency to all ethnicities.
Views on the EU’s reform agenda within Bosnia are mixed. Maric says that EU reports of progress are met with laughter and raised eyebrows in the country. But the need for money for capital projects and general government spending, and a desire to complete unpopular reforms before the 2018 elections, will force politicians’ hands, the first diplomat argues.
“The implementation of the agenda will severely limit the influence of politics on the economy,” says Huskic—and Bosnia’s political parties “will not watch in silence as this unfolds. The real question is how far they are prepared to go to preserve the status quo.” Bosnia’s leaders have so far shown little enthusiasm for surrendering personal gain for the greater good.
The European Council’s acceptance of Bosnia’s EU membership application in September received little attention, given that it was just the beginning of a long process—and one that some think will never actually be concluded. Now the European Commission must assess Bosnia’s readiness for official membership candidate status, including by sending a lengthy “questionnaire” to Sarajevo with thousands of questions on matters of EU suitability.
Florian Bieber, a Balkan expert at the University of Graz, is not optimistic. “In five years’ time, I would expect to see Bosnia being very much like it is today,” he says, doubting the EU’s ability to press for progress on Bosnian reforms given many of the bloc’s own problems today. “I would instead consider the long-term impact, once the EU crisis abates and accession becomes more realistic again.”
But waiting for the EU’s succession of crises to abate may be a rather long game for fragile Bosnia to play.
Andrew MacDowall is a Belgrade-based correspondent and analyst focusing on Central and Eastern Europe. He has lived and worked in the region since 2006 and has written for publications including the Financial Times, Guardian, Politico Europe, Business New Europe and Christian Science Monitor.
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