EU Conditionality and State-Building in Bosnia: An Uneasy Relationship

Résumé du document

The thesis examines the adequacy of the EU conditionality to induce state-building reforms in the particular context of Bosnia. The purpose is to analyze whether the conditions set, and the incentives offered by the EU are adequate to induce state-building reforms. The EU conditionality has been largely successful in inducing domestic changes in Central and Eastern European Countries in the previous pre-accession process. The task faced by the EU conditionality in Bosnia has however been fundamentally different from the previous pre-accession experience. In fact, the inclusion of Bosnia in the EU's Stabilization and Association Process, the framework for the Western Balkans accession to the EU, has overlapped with the country's state-building process. The unprecedented challenge of the EU conditionality has been to provide the political elite of an ethnically divided country, with sufficient leverage to induce the reforms necessary to build a viable state. Highlighting Bosnia's difficult adoption of EU conditions within the Stabilization and Association Process, and its reliance on the influence of the High Representative, it appears that the influence of EU conditionality has been weaker than expected in inducing statebuilding reforms. The central argument of the thesis is that, this is due to the problematic relationship between the EU conditionality and the country's specificity.

Extraits

[...] Sarcevic remarks in fact that abstract Bosnian citizens do not exists as political subjects” but essentially as a member of their respective ethnic community25. In sum, the constitutional structure of Bosnia favoured a political dynamic which would essentially be targeted at defending each community's respective ethnic interest instead of fostering the emergence of a civic political culture. In this context, political agreement between the three ethnic communities in Bosnia would be very difficult and it will now be seen how this affected the process of state-building Francine Friedman, op. cit, p.62 Sumantra Bose, op. cit., p Sumantra Bose op. [...]

[...] In practical terms, this means that Bosnian political elite have to adopt difficult domestic reform “without any Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, op. cit., p670 Ibid . p 670- Ibid p Ibid Stefano Recchia, op. cit p immediate pay off either for themselves or for the broader population”167. In a note of the Institute of Security Studies, Judy Batt recognizes this trend by stating that: incentives offered by the SAP do not offer enough, soon enough, to alter politicians' calculations and reshape their short-term interests and strategies for maintaining power. [...]

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[...] The EU needs to recognize that the (very) long term prospect of EU membership cannot by itself induce difficult statebuilding reforms in a country that is still affected by a lack of common vision for its future. Several analysts have pointed to the need to introduce intermediate rewards, recognizing that “there is a need to make the EU perspective more tangible”275. In other words, compliance should be tied not solely to the distant reality of EU accession but should be linked to “immediate and tangible benefits” Considering that Bosnia is a very long way from entering the EU and the extent and significance of reforms it will need to engage in to progress towards this goal, this appears to be of utmost importance. [...]

[...] As outlined above, the adoption of the police reform has been extremely difficult and this despite the fact that it has been the last significant condition standing on Bosnia's way to sign an SAA. When assessing the SAP in general, it has been pointed out that the leverage of the EU membership perspective has not been sufficient as such and the involvement of the High Representative has been important in pushing for the adoption of EU conditions. This seems to have been particularly the case with the police reform. [...]