Bosnia's Slow Europeanisation

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has closely correlated different aspects of the peace process in Bosnia with progress towards European accession. The ‘power of attraction’ of EU membership would presumably induce the Bosnian authorities to accept the adaptation costs of political and economic transformation. However, the Europeanisation approach has not produced the expected results. The track record of the EU's policies towards Bosnia represents a paradigmatic case of what would happen if almost nothing works as efficiently as in the case of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. The article investigates the causes of EU policy failure in Bosnia and claims that the EU has not effectively responded to three challenges: 1) adjust the process to the needs of an ethnically divided post-war state; 2) preserve the credibility of accession conditionality, and 3) convey the proper messages on how to comply with EU rules. Therefore, the article argues for a more cohesive and consistent EU approach towards Bosnia.

Key Words:

• Bosnia
• Europeanisation
• EU enlargement
• accession conditionality

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Efstathios T. Fakiolas, Aristotle Tziampiris, the journal's editor and the anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions on previous versions of the article.

Notes

¹ This argument was originally developed by Risse et al. (2001, pp. 1–9) in a study of the impact of Europeanisation on the practices of the member-states themselves. However, the argument has subsequently been transferred to enlargement literature, too.

² For a more extensive discussion of this mechanism, see Papadimitriou and Gateva (2009, pp. 157–162).

³ According to a Bosniak official, ‘For the SDA, everything demanded by the European Commission is acceptable. That is what we want’ (Quoted by Gromes 2009, p. 440).

⁴ The ‘April package’ was the outcome of year-long negotiations among the main Bosnian parties from April 2005 to March 2006. While the talks were initially informal, the active involvement of the US in November 2005 increased the visibility of the process. The Bosnian House of Representatives did not eventually approve the reforms with a two-thirds majority in April 2006 and the entire process was discontinued (Arvanitopoulos and Tzifakis 2008, pp. 18–20). The Butmir proposals were two propositions that were sponsored by the US and the EU and were presented (without any success) to the Bosnian parties in October and November 2009 (International Crisis Group 2009b).

⁵ Inzko's position prevailed eventually. For a more elaborate discussion, see Sebastian (2009a, p. 2) and Alic (2009).