Bosnia and Herzegovina - The European Union’s Post-Conflict Intervention

Despite the often-cited “fiasco” of the European Union during the Yugoslavian wars, the European Union’s later interventions in the Balkans, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, may have served as a scenario to foster the emergence of an European Union whose international identity is that of a regional normative power. The European Union’s intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina, supported by significant economic assistance and using military instruments, has proved essential to endorsing the institutional-building process currently taking place in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This article explores the consequences of the European Union’s continued activities, both for Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union itself. It argues that a parallel process has taken place in the last decade facilitating the (re)integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the European Union mainstream and the (re)invention of the European Union as a regional normative power, aiming to promote regional cooperation, human rights, democracy and rule of law. But these developments have not occurred without problems, which this article also addresses.

In the early 1990s, the search for a negotiated solution that could stop the bloody conflict in the Former Yugoslavia was considered by both European Union and international observers to be the first test for the embryonic Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Consequently, at the beginning of the Yugoslav crisis, the Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jacques Poos, then head of the EC (European Union Community) Presidency, declared that the organization would intervene in Yugoslavia because it was “the hour of European Union rope, not the hour of the United States”. His statement summarized the high expectations among EC members regarding the CFSP, expectations which made subsequent failure even more painful.

Despite earlier failures, the Balkans in general, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in particular, remain a major focus of attention for policy-makers in Brussels. Bosnia and Herzegovina has been selected for the “real test” of the first ESDP missions (the first ever European Union Police Mission in January 2003 and the largest European Union military mission, European Union for Althea, to date). This article explores the consequences of the European Union’s continued activities in this country, both for Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union. It argues that a parallel process has taken place in the last decade facilitating the (re)integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the European Union mainstream and the (re)invention of the European Union as a regional normative power.

However, this dual process has not developed without problems. The article examines this process of identity building both in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union, as well as the main obstacles that may block further progress.

So far the literature on the European Union’s activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been rather limited. Many accounts have focused on the European Union’s effort to stop the war in Former Yugoslavia, in collaboration with other international actors, and stressed how badly the European Union reacted to the eruption of the conflict.

More recent analyses of the European Union’s external action in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been more concerned with the economic assistance supporting the process of post-conflict reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the process of the European Union’s enlargement in the Western Balkans. This article intends to contribute to the understanding of the European Union’s activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina by considering the whole period from the dissolution of Yugoslavia to date. In this way, the European Union’s activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be better conceived as a process of identity-building from a civilian (rather ineffective) power to a normative (increasingly effective) power in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Furthermore, this article aims to provide some empirical evidence to support the concept of normative power which has often been confined to theoretical debates in the literature, whereas not sufficient empirical evidence has been delivered.

The analysis proceeds as follows. I begin by examining the uneasy relationship between the Balkans and European Union rope, focusing on how Bosnia and Herzegovina perceives and is perceived by the EUROPEAN UNION . Next, I briefly examine the main obstacles that hinder Bosnia and Herzegovina’s reintegration into the European Union ropean mainstream. I then move to the case of the EUROPEAN UNION ’s intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina, explaining these activities since the beginning of the 1990s and the development from a civilian to a normative power. I elaborate more on the last period, discussing some of the implications of this recent development. I conclude by summarizing the main challenges ahead for Bosnia and Herzegovina and discussing what prospects for the EUROPEAN UNION to become a global/regional normative power.

References to the dichotomy European Union rope/the Balkans have been present in the discourse of the different parties involved throughout history, but the (re)integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina into European Union ro-Atlantic structures would effectively finish with the endless “either/or” debate as to whether it belongs in “European Union rope” or the “Balkans”.