Waning support

In 2003, the EU held the Thessaloniki summit at which it promised Western Balkan countries European integration if they met certain admission criteria. In 2016, Bosnia finally applied for EU membership and three years later, Brussels outlined 14 requirements the country has to fulfil in order for the accession procedure to be launched, but since then the process has stalled. In early October, an EU summit in Slovenia failed to produce a clear timetable for Bosnia’s accession to the union.

It is by now obvious that declining support among EU citizens for continuing enlargement of the union is influencing EU decision making and its willingness to proceed with integration.

These negative signals out of Brussels are inevitably affecting the Bosnian public, which is starting to perceive the integration process as unfair and inconsistent. In a 2020 poll by Bosnia’s European Integration Office, 75 percent of respondents said they are in favour of joining the EU. Just six years earlier, this number was 85 percent.

The downward trend is also apparent in various public spheres, including in academia, intellectual spaces and even politics. I have been teaching at university level in Sarajevo since 2014. In this capacity, I used to sit through a considerable number of MA theses defences on Bosnia’s European integration process every year. But over the last year or two, there has been a marked decline in student interest in writing on or researching the EU.

I have seen a growing disinterest in EU politics even among my colleagues. Academics who once regularly lectured and consulted on European integration are now reorienting their work and focusing on Russia, the far-right, and illiberal politics. Likewise, non-governmental organisations that used to focus on EU membership have also moved on to other fields.

Key public figures in the political sphere have also seemingly lost their passion for EU integration and sound more and more disillusioned in their public statements. Reuf Bajrovic, for example, who founded the Civic Alliance party and has advocated civic-based politics to counter ethnic politics in Bosnia, has become increasingly vocal in his criticisms of the EU.

He, like other prominent figures, has argued that Brussels is biased against Bosniaks, who make up slightly more than 50 percent of the Bosnian population, and does not want to admit countries with large Muslim communities within the union.

While this argument was almost unheard of in Bosnia’s public sphere five to 10 years ago, it is now increasingly accepted as a plausible explanation for the EU’s inconsistent policies towards Bosnia. Anti-Muslim sentiment in Brussels is also raised as a possible reason behind the sluggish progress North Macedonia and Albania have made towards membership; Muslims constitute respectively 36 percent and 59 percent of their populations.

Adding to the growing scepticism among Bosnians is the perception that the EU integration failed to transform the politics of other Balkan countries. Corruption and dysfunction continue to plague Balkan nations which joined the union over the past 17 years. This is challenging the conviction that the EU could resolve Bosnia’s problems.

For Bosnia, like other Western Balkan states, the prospect of EU membership was a driving force for political reform. Now with membership an increasingly distant prospect, momentum for reforms has declined.

This has inevitably affected the sway the EU has over Bosnian politics. Bosnian politicians are increasingly challenging EU positions, calling the EU’s bluff and walking away with no consequences. Take, for example, Bosnian Serb member of the country’s tripartite presidency, Milorad Dodik. He has been continuously undermining the Dayton Peace Accords and destabilising the country.

In July, Valentin Inzko, the then UN High Representative who holds some executive powers in Bosnia, imposed a ban on denial of the Bosnian genocide, which is widespread in Republika Srpska. In retaliation, Dodik instructed Bosnian Serb representatives in state institutions to stop their work, thereby effectively blocking their decision-making processes, as input from all three main ethnic groups (Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats) is needed for them to function.

Excerpted: ‘Bosnia’s disillusionment with the EU is dangerous’ Aljazeera.com