{"id":7927,"date":"2020-03-01T13:27:14","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T13:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.incirliseviye.com\/?p=7927"},"modified":"2020-03-01T13:27:14","modified_gmt":"2020-03-01T13:27:14","slug":"ghosts-of-war-haunt-bosnias-european-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/?p=7927","title":{"rendered":"Ghosts of war haunt Bosnia\u2019s European future"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"art\"><figcaption>\n<p>A woman prays at the Potocari cemetery and memorial near Srebrenica. <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<header>\n<h1>Ghosts of war haunt Bosnia\u2019s European future<\/h1>\n<p class=\"subhead\">Ethnic and political deadlock is stifling the economy and annoying Brussels. <\/p>\n<\/header>\n<footer class=\"meta\">\n<p>\n\t\t\tBy\t\t\t<span class=\"byline\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"vcard\">Andrew MacDowall<\/span>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"timestamp\"><time datetime=\"2015-07-11T12:32:09+00:00\">7\/11\/15, 12:32 PM CET<\/time><\/p>\n<p class=\"updated\">Updated <time datetime=\"2015-07-12T14:11:57+00:00\">7\/12\/15, 2:11 PM CET<\/time><\/p>\n<\/footer>\n<p>SARAJEVO \u2014 It\u2019s two decades since a massacre in Srebrenica prompted NATO to intervene to stop the war in Bosnia. But the state created out of the\u00a01995 peace deal is struggling and dysfunctional, leaving Bosnia\u00a0lagging in its bid to eventually join the EU.<\/p>\n<p>Some movement in recent weeks toward the Union has been quickly followed by disappointment.<\/p>\n<p>In early June, Bosnia\u2019s EU Stabilization and Association Agreement finally came into force, reviving efforts for it to join the bloc. The agreement had been frozen since late 2007 because of lagging\u00a0political reforms.<\/p>\n<p>The idea was to push troublesome constitutional changes into the future, and put in place a raft of economic reforms aimed at improving living standards for ordinary Bosnians, rather than\u00a0focusing on demands to change\u00a0the ethnically-defined political system.<\/p>\n<p>But by June 10, Milorad Dodik, president of the ethnic Serb entity, the Republika Srpska, refused to sign a more detailed reform agenda put forward by the EU, objecting to measures that included energy privatization. As a result, Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn canceled a planned visit to Sarajevo during which he was due to sign off on a draft of the program.<\/p>\n<p>Dodik is now playing Russia off against the EU. Dodik, together with the government of Serbia,\u00a0managed to rope Moscow\u00a0into using its\u00a0UN Security Council veto on Wednesday to kill a resolution on the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, when Serb fighters slaughtered more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys after overrunning a UN enclave where they had sought refuge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything is done to promote a non-truth, namely that there was a genocide there, while ignoring the Serb victims,\u201d Dodik told Bosnian Serb television.<\/p>\n<h3>Unemployment at 60%<\/h3>\n<p>The past continues to overshadow Bosnia in other ways, such as hampering efforts to kickstart a sputtering economy.<\/p>\n<p>Bosnia\u2019s youth unemployment, at 60 percent, is one of the highest in the world. Multiple layers of government, sometimes with inimical interests, lead to political deadlock. Inefficient government-linked companies, run on patronage, proliferate.<\/p>\n<p>It is \u201ca pretty challenging country,\u201d was the understated assessment of one senior Western diplomat in Sarajevo.<\/p>\n<p>The challenge is growing. Anti-government protests in Bosnia last year and the ongoing political crisis in nearby Macedonia have highlighted the continuing risks of instability in the Balkans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBosnia and Herzegovina \u2026 has been stuck for years,\u201d Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusi\u0107, who helped initiate the new reform agenda, told POLITICO. \u201cBut there is hope that there might be a breakthrough in the coming year, and where there is hope, there is interest. I believe there\u2019s a chance to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The idea is that economic reforms will create a more favorable environment for tackling ethnic issues, partly by expanding the number of Bosnians who have private-sector jobs and are less dependent on state patronage.<\/p>\n<p>One example of how constitutional reforms have been at least temporarily shelved is the so-called \u201cSejdi\u0107-Finci\u201d question. This was a response to a European ruling that found Bosnia in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights for effectively barring anyone not defining themselves as Serb, Croat or Bosnian Muslim from official posts, including the presidency and the upper house of parliament.<\/p>\n<p>The case was brought by prominent members of the Jewish and Roma communities who pointed out that they were disenfranchised by the system, installed by the 1995 Dayton Agreement which brought the war to a close.<\/p>\n<p>But the pressure now is less on untangling issues like that \u2014 for the time being \u2014 and more on economics and business.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe country is not as stable as we\u2019d like,\u201d said the diplomat. \u201cThe new approach is a recognition that the country can\u2019t afford to just focus on constitutional and political reform \u2014 though that has to be resolved, that simply has to happen \u2014 but should take into account other things that are more important to ordinary people, like jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Elites block reforms<\/h3>\n<p>There is an enormous amount to do. Although the International Monetary Fund predicts the Bosnian economy will grow by about 2 percent this year, the country has fallen far behind its regional peers. Bosnia is significantly poorer than Montenegro and Serbia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGrowth could accelerate to 4 percent over the medium term, provided that sustained progress is made in structural reform implementation,\u201d noted the IMF in a recent assessment of the Bosnian economy. \u201cAbsent this, growth prospects are likely to be much weaker than before the crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Serbia is doing better in its quest to join the EU. It signed its stabilization and association agreement in 2007, has visa-free entry to the EU, became a member candidate in 2012 and is engaged in accession negotiations. Even Macedonia, dogged by the dispute over its name with Greece and also dealing with ethnic tensions, is further ahead. While Bosnia has not yet formally applied for membership, Macedonia has been a candidate since 2005.<\/p>\n<p>In Bosnia, diplomats are confident that there is at last momentum behind change following protests early last year in which government buildings were torched and officials\u2019 cars tossed into a river. This, they say, has shaken Bosnian politicians out of their torpor and made them realize that the status quo is unsustainable. It has also reminded the international community that the country is potentially unstable.<\/p>\n<p>The senior diplomat calls the association agreement \u201ca down-payment\u201d on Bosnia\u2019s future reforms. But it places the onus on Bosnian politicians to honor commitments that may actually be opposed to their interests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is very little appetite to undertake challenging reforms that would damage Bosnia&#8217;s elites, especially where public sector, pension and labor market reforms are concerned,\u201d said another diplomat with long experience in Bosnia.<\/p>\n<p>Click Here: <a href='https:\/\/www.rwcstore.com\/nrl-telstra-premiership.html' title='NRL Telstra Premiership'>NRL Telstra Premiership<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Bosnian Serbs push away<\/h3>\n<p>Dodik is not only opposing the EU initiative, he also recently called for a referendum on the Serb enclave\u2019s secession from Bosnia in 2018 should it not be granted further autonomy.<\/p>\n<p>In the Croat-Bosniak part of the country that accounts for 51 percent of its territory, there are also continuing tensions. The entity\u2019s government is on the brink of collapse over disagreements on the divvying up of management of state-owned companies.<\/p>\n<p>It is not just the political elite that is skeptical: trade unions have already rallied against labor reform, and threatened a \u201cfinal showdown\u201d if the authorities persist with liberalization.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome of my European colleagues have said that Bosnia and Herzegovina has been given this window of opportunity and they have to use it,\u201d said Pusi\u0107. \u201cMy approach is that this is true, but we have to reach through the window and pull them through in order for this to work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>This article has been updated to correct that Serbia has signed a\u00a0stabilization and association agreement and that Macedonia has been a membership candidate since 2005, not last year.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<footer class=\"content-credits\">\n<h6>Authors:<\/h6>\n<dl class=\"vcard\">\n<dt class=\"credits-author\"><span class=\"vcard\">Andrew MacDowall<\/span>&nbsp;<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/footer>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A woman prays at the Potocari cemetery and memorial near Srebrenica. Ghosts of war haunt Bosnia\u2019s European future Ethnic and political deadlock is stifling the economy and annoying Brussels. By Andrew MacDowall 7\/11\/15, 12:32 PM CET Updated 7\/12\/15, 2:11 PM CET SARAJEVO \u2014 It\u2019s two decades since a massacre in Srebrenica prompted NATO to intervene &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/onhee.com\/?p=7927\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Ghosts of war haunt Bosnia\u2019s European future&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}