Bosnia and Herzegovina: Risks of country break-up and conflict are rising under Bosnian Serb leader’s secessionist push

Event

In a recent report, Christian Schmidt, the High Representative of the International Community for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) warned of a high danger for the country of breaking apart and seeing a return to conflict in the country and region. This particularly alarmist message came after Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik threatened in October to implement his plan of pulling the Republika Srpska (RS) – the BiH Serb entity – out of the Bosnian federation’s main institutions. 

Impact 

After years of frequent political paralysis, increasingly putting into question the sustainability of BiH’s state institutions, the country faces its most serious political crisis since the end of the 1992-1995 war. This situation can largely be explained by the repeatedly postponed prospects of accession to the EU, the absence of reforms and poor socio-economic management by the Bosnian political elite. Those factors have harmed long-term stability within the fragile BiH state. In that context – taking into account the Serbs and Croats’ criticism of the increasing power transfer from entity level to central state level – nationalism and divisions have grown further over time in each ethnic group, starting from the RS. More recently, Milorad Dodik firmly opposed a BiH law banning the denial of the Srebrenica genocide. Milorad Dodik now threatens to withdraw the RS from the BiH’s state institutions (i.e. tax administration, judiciary and army) and to return to the “original 1995 Dayton Agreement”, which allocated broad autonomy to each of the two entities of BiH. The most worrying aspect would be the implied creation of a separate army for the RS. This would increase the risk of conflict not only within BiH but also, more generally, in the Balkans and thereby reaffirming once again the historical regional instability. Indeed, Croatia and Serbia would certainly be involved, while young states as Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia could be destabilised. Geopolitics would also make the situation more complex given Russia and Serbia’s expected support for the RS, Turkey’s potential support for Bosnian Muslims, whereas the USA and the EU’s eroded presence and attention to the region over time weakened their share of power and influence in the Balkans. 

Hence, the importance for each BiH ethnic group, but also for the EU and the USA, to prevent an escalation of tensions. This also explains the need to accelerate long-delayed electoral reform, which would mitigate secession pressures and reduce the possibility of armed conflict flaring up again in the Balkans.. Therefore, US and EU diplomats visited BiH in November, announcing their determination to defend the Dayton Agreement, and threatened the RS with economic sanctions. Their stance made it possible to temporarily suspend Milorad Dodik’s autonomist plan. In the coming months, a more active mediation with BiH actors on the negotiation of a tough political reform is expected. There is, however, not much to expect regarding a future accession to the EU, as EU enlargement is frozen for a long period. In the absence of any electoral reform progress in the near term – which is a clear risk given the long disagreement between Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims – tensions could rise again and lead Milorad Dodik to return in the Spring. Uncertainty would then peak in the run-up to the general elections of October 2022. In this strained environment, the EUFOR (EU force in BiH) peacekeeping mission’s mandate was renewed by the UN Security Council in early November. In the case of deteriorating conflict risk on the ground, it is unclear whether there would be appetite for a NATO intervention. Credendo’s political violence risk has been classified in category 5/7 over the past decade, but the outlook is now negative.

Analyst: Raphaël Cecchi – r.cecchi@credendo.com