The future of Bosnia y Herzegovina is uncertain and hangs by a thin thread, as has happened so many times since its independence in 1992, and due to the internal tensions between the three ethnic groups, a difficult international situation is now coming together with the war in Ukraine, in which Moscow tries to destabilize the Balkans to create a regional crisis for NATO.
by Ricardo Angoso
To the ghost of the open intervention of Zagreb and Belgrade in the always complex Bosnian affairs, which has been a constant since 1992, the date on which the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, are now joined by regional tensions caused by the war in Ukraine.
Russia has always been a firm ally of Serbia, which still has its dispute over Kosovo open, where Western powers illegally and against international law recognized the independence (2008) of this former Serbian region, leaving it in the hands of an entity controlled by Kosovar Albanians to thousands of Serbs deprived of their most basic rights.
Apart from the always bleeding conflict in Kosovo, which is a thorn in the hearts of all Serbs, there is the always tense situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
One of the two entities into which this country is divided is the Republika Srpska, which occupies 49% of the Bosnian territory, and which enjoys a certain autonomy from the Bosnian government located in Sarajevo.
Moscow is present in the permanent tensions in this area of the world, both in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, stoking interethnic tensions and encouraging Belgrade to foment destabilization in NATO's Balkan periphery.
The Bosnian Serbs, led by Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik, have never hidden their desire to one day join Serbia and maintain excellent relations with Belgrade and also with Moscow. “Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Dodik has met with Vladimir Putin four times.
At the end of the last meeting, in February 2024, Putin awarded him the Order of Alexander Nevsky, “for his great contribution to the development of cooperation between the Republika Srpska and Russia.”
The Bosnian Serb leader serves Moscow's interests in the region, interested in maintaining certain levels of tension in the country that hinder the European enlargement process or prevent the integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). )”, as analyst Miguel Roan explained in a recent article.
It is worth remembering that the Republika Srpska was founded in 1992, when the Serb representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina withdrew from the institutions and decided to found their own political entity separate from their Croat and Bosnian neighbors - Bosnian Muslims.
Once the long and bloody Bosnian civil war ended, between 1992 and 1995, the international community, led by the United States, forced Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, which represented the Bosnian Serbs, to accept a broadly unitary framework of coexistence. decentralized and with great autonomy for the two entities created, the Federation of Croats and Bosnians and the Republika Srpska, but which in practice has been resolved as too little functional and of great complexity for it to really function normally.
THE BOSNIAN STATE DOES NOT WORK
Between 1995 and now, the Bosnian State has not functioned and centrifugal tensions, especially on the Serbian side, have been very present. There has always been talk of a reform of the Dayton Accords, which have been surpassed by the reality on the ground, but there was never enough force on the part of the international community nor sufficient agreement between the parties in Bosnia to implement A new political and constitutional order is underway for a country so complex and surrounded by so many enemies with a voracious (nationalist) appetite. “The two autonomous entities that form Bosnia according to the Dayton peace agreements - the common Muslim and Croat, and the Serbian - as well as the three towns, each function on their own, and the excessive bureaucratic apparatus - with 130 ministries of different levels - further stifles the functioning of the shared state structure,” explained Bosnian analyst Nedim Hasic.
It is obvious and evident that among Muslim, Serbian and Croatian politicians there is no consensus on the reforms necessary for the functioning of the country and its integration into the EU and NATO.
They live in a kind of country that has become a collective project imposed by international society - mainly the EU, NATO and the United States - and not the result of consensus between the three communities living in that territorial space. “Ravaged by corruption, trapped in the bureaucratic system created by Dayton and with a gigantic social crisis, the existing structures have failed to make the country progress,” researcher Ignacio González Arnal aptly summarized.
The corruption prevailing in the Bosnian monstrosity created by the international community, but especially designed by Bill Clinton's administration in the Dayton Accords, would deserve a separate chapter in this note, since it has become a chronic "disease" of the country as it is. as all international organizations present in Bosnia point out.
The country lives in a permanent crisis, at all levels, both politically, socially and economically. The two entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina do not share the same worldview on international relations and even within the Federation there is great political fragmentation and ethno-nationalist parties continue to show their hegemony among both Croats and Bosnians.
Socially, the situation is not better and the country is not lifting its head. A report from the Spanish newspaper El País noted that “Two out of ten Bosnian families live in poverty. Of the remaining eight, five live on the edge; A bad harvest could plunge them into grief.
Rural majority (60%), seasoned in a thousand bombings and stabbings, which does not allow itself to be fooled by the urban dream, while its youth looks to the sky looking for a solution to its only record: Bosnia and Herzegovina is the country with the highest youth unemployment rate in all the planet. 46.7% of boys and girls between 15 and 24 years old cannot find employment and it is not that they are not looking for it, it is that there is none.”
The economic situation is not better either and the per capita income per Bosnian inhabitant barely exceeds 4.500 euros, one of the lowest on the entire continent. and the minimum wage is 260 per month, an insignificant figure to support a family or pay the rent for a decent home. As a result of this complicated social-economic situation, the demographic crisis that the country is suffering is explained, which has gone from the 4,5 million registered in 1991 to the current 3,2 million. This reveals that the Bosnian population is very old since the youngest people almost always emigrate, and the trend, according to data from recent years, is increasing.
To conclude, and as a summary, Bosnia and Herzegovina faces enormous challenges in the coming years, among them survival as a State and its territorial integrity called into question by the Republika Srpska and surely later by the Croats of the Federation.
These challenges coincide in time with a serious social, economic and demographic crisis and a very adverse international context due to the Ukraine crisis, in which Russia tries to destabilize its periphery and influence the ever-present Balkan instability to open new fronts for NATO. .
The announcement of negotiations between the EU and Bosnia and Herzegovina is just a toast to the sun without practical consequences for the country, as has happened with the rest of the candidates - Albania, Montenegro, Serbia and North Macedonia - who have been waiting for years at the tail end of history, integration into the EU and that the “community club” postpones indefinitely and without giving many explanations.
Photos of the author of the note