11 April 2024
The High Representative Strikes Again
In March 2024, the High Representative (HR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Christian Schmidt, once again used his “Bonn powers” under the Dayton Peace Agreement which, inter alia, enable him to impose substantial legislation. After a dark warning, he enacted a new package of reforms concerning the electoral process. While these reforms reflect the necessary and desirable changes in the process of the EU accession, concurrently resolving a political stalemate, this schmidtian mode also creates further political cleavages. Nevertheless, arguably a “Smith” has found a fairly clever way forward. Continue reading >>
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28 March 2024
The Kovačević Case Revisited
On 20 March 2023 the Council of the European Union gave Bosnia and Hercegovina green light to start accession negotiations. However, despite this political endorsement, BiH must fulfill the conditionality criteria, including a series of six judgments by the ECtHR relating to the predetermined ethnic keys. The last case, Kovačević v. BiH, was referred to the Grand Chamber in December 2023. If the Court follows its previous case law, this should force the mono-ethnic political parties and their leaders as well as the EU institutions to insist on de-blocking the constitutional impasse for any realistic steps towards European integration. Continue reading >>
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