Inzko Gives UN Upbeat Report on Bosnia

Bosnia's International high representative, Valentin Inzko, presented an optimistic half-year report on the implementation of the peace agreement in Bosnia to the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

The report highlighted the long overdue return of political dialogue in the country, which has opened the way for several positive developments.

Inzko started from the appointment of the new state government, 16 months after the last elections, and the adoption of few important laws, as well as the agreement on the division of military property and the adoption of the state budget.

He said he had given full support to leaders of six main parties to form a state government in February and made it equally clear that the international community will not interfere with its work, as any agreement is up to them.

“For the first time in a long time we have a political progress based on dialogue and readiness to compromise,” Inzko said.

“If BiH's leaders meet the commitments they have made, 2012 could indeed be a great year on the path to Euro-integration.”

“In any case it has started as a very promising year,” he continued.

Alongside the positive moves, Inzko emphasized the presence of a parallel dynamic of divisive political agendas, calling them a “dynamic of nationalist politics and a readiness by some to challenge the [1995 Dayton] Peace Agreement and, in particular, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.”

“I must take these challenges seriously,” Inzko told the UN.

Referring to the Bosnian Serb entity's leadership, he continued: “The most senior officials of Republika Srpska have made frequent statements referencing the possible dissolution of the state, as well as calling into question its future.

“I have been equally concerned by continued RS assertions... that the entities are in fact states,” Inzko stated.

“The RS President on numerous occasions referred incorrectly to Bosnia and Herzegovina as a 'state union' and to the Republika Srpska as a state of one constituent people.”

On the economic front, the country faces a deteriorating fiscal position, poor growth prospects, high unemployment and accompanying social problems, the report said.

It recalled that state-level institutions have worked on the basis of temporary financing for over 16 months and the 2012 budget is yet to be adopted.

Prior to the high representative's report to UN on Bosnia, the Republika Srpska sent its own report to the UN Security Council, noting the successes achieved in Bosnia since December without input from the international community.

“It has not been international impositions or pressure that made these agreements possible,” the Serb report said, “It has been their absence.”