Repairing Relationships in the Balkans

Story: Bosnia, Serbia pledge to mend ties, lure investors.

There hasn't been a whole lot of good news out of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the last several years. This year however has seen some progress in repairing the relationship between Serbia and Bosnia. At the end of March, the Serbian parliament voted to condemn the Srebrenica massacre- and Serbian president Boris Tadić agreed to attend this year's commemorations of the massacre. These are huge steps forward for the region- and I would venture to say aren't without risks as nationalism remains a potent force in Serbia.

However this relationship is complex (in a way that the article doesn't touch on). Bosnian Serbs and Republika Srpska have a rather close relationship with the Republic of Serbia (and its precedents) dating back before the 1992-95 war. Since the war this relationship has been exclusive to Bosnian Serbs (a previous visit by Tadić to the Republika Srpska- without an matching visit to national level institutions or the Federation- caused quite a few waves).

The Bosnian Serb member of the presidency is frustrated with recent improvements in the relationship between Bosnia and Serbia. On the surface this seems a paradox. But its not so much the close ties as much as it is who the close ties are with.

The meeting in Turkey threatens the Bosnian Serb leadership's exclusive hold on close ties with Serbia- and that likely plays into the objections of the Serb member of the Bosnian presidency. This time it was a Bosniak president of a state level institution that met with the president of Serbia, and not members of a Serb affiliated party or a someone associated with Republika Srpska. This does little to nurture the secessionist dreams still held by some leaders in Republika Srpska.

Bosnia and its people have suffered from these damaged dysfunctional relationships. For much of the late 1990s Croatian and Serbian nationalists funneled resources to obstructionist leaders in Bosnia and paralyzed its politics. Since 2000 changes in leadership in these neighboring countries have improved relationships, but progress is slow.