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Written by Brussels journalist David Ferguson,
Euro-Reporters
Thursday, 13 October 2005
Ten years after the Dayton Agreement that ended civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, politicians in the former Yugoslav republic still need to create a functioning state argues Doris Pack, Chair of the European Parliament's delegation to South-Eastern Europe.
Pack called for the country to redefine itself: "This would entail, very clearly, that the existing patchwork of 200 ministers, 80 political parties and 14 parliaments in a country of 4 million inhabitants is incompatible with EU standards," said Pack.
"There is no questioning the fact that Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as the remaining countries in the Western Balkans, have a future in the European Union," continued Pack, speaking at a hearing on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Dayton Agreement.
"But after ten years it is now up to responsible politicians in Bosnia-Herzegovina to provide for successful adjustment of the Dayton Agreement," said the right-of-center German MEP. "That is creating a slim and functioning state of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a precondition for an accession perspective to the European Union."
For Pack (CDU), Bosnia-Herzegovina should redefine itself as a "common entity simultaneously protecting the identity of all three existing ethnic groups". The former Yugoslav republic has made substantial progress in specific fields such as defense, tax, the legal system, and more recently police reform.
"Still, the Dayton-Agreement as an original peace settlement is not sufficient any more. Bosnians, Croats and Serbs should therefore leave their purely ethnic corners and agree on a common framework for Bosnia-Herzegovina - including painful compromises - if they want to convince the European public that an association agreement with the European Union is useful," argued Pack.
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