Bosnien und Herzegowina

A U.N. resolution sponsored by Germany and Rwanda to establish an annual day to commemorate the 1995 genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs has sparked protests and a strong lobbying campaign against its adoption by Serbia’s president and the Bosnian Serb leadership.

Almost twenty-nine years after the signing of the Dayton Agreement — which ended the 1992-1995 war and created two entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina — the Security Council heard today that such Agreement is the starting point for that country’s accession to the European Union, as speakers urged action to advance genuine reconciliation among Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs.

Both positive and “worrying” developments have recently unfolded in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a top UN official told the Security Council on Tuesday at an emergency meeting requested by Russia.

France will be one of the co-sponsors of a draft UN resolution on Srebrenica, the Srebrenica Memorial Center announced on April 12, a move that would establish a day marking the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslim men by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995. 

After Bosnia’s international overseer imposed changes to the national election law, Serb-dominated Republika Srpska responded by adopting a draft of its own version of the legislation and threatening to paralyse state-level decision-making.

Bosnia’s international peace overseer on Tuesday (26 March) imposed changes to the country’s election law to ensure its integrity, including barring convicted war criminals from running, ahead of a vote in October. … Christian Schmidt said the aim of the “integrity package” was to restore voter trust through measures such as electronic scanning, counting of ballots and voter identification, as well as making election committees more professional.

The European Commission on Tuesday recommended opening European Union membership talks with Bosnia and Herzegovina, saying the Balkan country had made more progress on reforms over the past year than in the previous decade.

The trial of Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik on charges of defying the rulings of an international peace envoy formally begun on Monday after delays due to his protests against judges he said were biased and other complaints.

Bosnia's State Investigation and Protection Agency arrested seven individuals in the Zvornik area on Friday, suspected of participating in the mass killing of 800 Bosniaks after the fall of the UN-declared 'safe zone' in 1995.

While most politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina have remained silent on yet another halt to the opening of accession talks with the European Union, its citizens reacted with sorrow to the most recent delay on the EU path.  While opening talks with Ukraine and Moldova on Thursday, prime ministers of EU member countries meeting in Brussels said they would only open talks with Bosnia “once certain criteria are met”.