The international high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Miroslav Lajcak, was in the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee at the beginning of September, talking about the need for the EU to show ‘leadership and strategic reasoning’ when dealing with BiH’s transition to become a viable state.
The security situation in Bosnia is stable, but the country is still facing numerous political challenges that need the EU’s support to solve, according to the Slovakian diplomat.
In the country itself, support for EU membership is as high as 80 percent, and a Stabilisation and Association Agreement was signed last June. But the country still faces large-scale corruption and organised crime as well as economic and political problems.
Mr Lajcak said ‘it had been our hope that the process of European integration would sideline the national issues of conflict, but it hasn’t happened.’ The conflict relates to issues between the two entities within the country; the Croatian-Muslim Federation and the Republika Srpska, each of which has ‘different and competing visions of the past and the future of the country’.
Link
EU Observer: EU must demonstrate ‘leadership’ in Bosnia http://euobserver.com/15/26715
Information provided by Rebecca Steel, TRIALOG
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