Berta López Domènech

After these elections, the 🇪🇺 could do at least 3️⃣ things in 🇧🇦. 1️⃣ Understand where the internal and external leverage lies. 2️⃣ Sit and think deeply about its immediate and its short- to long-term interests, and what they mean for its approach. 3️⃣ Act. On the leverage. Internally, it sits with the #SNSD and the #HDZBiH — with Milorad Dodik and Dragan Čović. They sit comfortably at state level: the Council of Ministers chairmanship, key ministries, and a Presidency renewed automatically after elections, where they now gain a seat. Meaning: they are in no hurry to form a government — itself, as in the past, a tool to extract concessions. Externally, the main leverage lies with 🇺🇸 and the Trump administration; a thinner slice with 🇭🇷 and 🇷🇸; part still with 🇷🇺 and, lately, 🇮🇱. No one knows what was agreed, promised, or expected for the support before the vote. But what the leading Serb and Croat parties want is no secret. They say it openly: in the conclusions and declarations of the Croat National Assembly and the All-Serb Assembly, and through their lobbyists in Brussels and Washington: the Dayton Peace Agreement as implemented since 1996 has failed, and the answer is territorial organisation along ethnic lines and far stronger autonomy. They differ only in intensity, methods and timing. The 🇪🇺 depends on others. EUFOR rests on a UN Security Council resolution (the 🇺🇸 and 🇷🇺). The #OHR and the Brcko arbitration are held by the 🇺🇸. The accession path depends on parliaments and governments where SNSD/HDZBiH have the keys. So the 🇪🇺 holds little leverage, and not only in 🇧🇦, but in 🇷🇸, 🇲🇰 and 🇽🇰. The past month made the point: two convicted war criminals buried with state-like honours — Ratko #Mladic in Belgrade, Biljana #Plavsic in Banja Luka. Statements from Brussels, however in the end right, changed nothing on the ground. So, act. 1️⃣ Stop outsourcing 🇧🇦 to Washington and learn from dealing with the 🇺🇸 on trade, 🇬🇱 and other files. With 🇺🇸 interest being mainly economic, it may use its leverage to speed up government formation. But beware: it will also use that leverage to settle one of the bigger obstacles to its economic interests, and those of and those paying the DC lobby ecosystem: state property. 2️⃣ Use the moment. Address the fact that the 🇪🇺s words matter little. When 🇪🇺 leaders meet in Brussels next week to discuss enlargement, they should send one message: there is a 🇪🇺 in which every country in the region, if it reforms, moves to deeper integration — first the single market and Schengen, and then full membership. Complex, hard-to-understand, tailor-made, piecemeal 🇪🇺 integration will not work. And 3️⃣, take Dodiks words, plans and power seriously — draw red lines and prepare the consequences. On this and more, I had the privilege of discussing with @Be_Herrero, @LBicakcic and @ivaaanaaa at @epc_eu's event. 🔗 lnkd.in/dhqgkZCv