America needs to return its focus to the Western Balkans, reads the Western Balkans Plan presented in Washington.
N1 spoke about this report, the view on Bosnia and Herzegovina, its internal and external problems, foreign powers affecting Bosnia's path towards the EU and NATO, and neighbours’ relations in an exclusive interview with the President and CEO of the EastWest Institute from New York Cameron Munter.
N1: Mr Ambassador, last night you presented the new Western Balkans’ Plan in Washington, the author of which are you and four of your colleagues. Can you tell us something more about it and could you tell us how you see Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Western Balkans at the moment?
“Let me start with the report. Thank you once again and strong greetings to my friends at N1 which plays such an important role in making sure that objective news comes to the people not only of Bosnia but the people in the Balkans. The report is an attempt by four experts in the region to try to make sure that the US Government pays closer attention to the Balkans,” Munter said. “I think it's clear to everyone that there's been somewhat of a lessening of attention from the US and so Frank Wisner who was an eminent American former diplomat, Jonathan E. Levitsky who worked on the Dayton Peace Agreement and some later issues in the Balkans and Tom Graham who works at Kissinger Associates and is an expert on Russia and I Came together to write this, not so much give an analysis of everything that's been happening in the Balkans, but to try to come up with those areas concretely, where the US, working with its European friends, can try to engage more clearly in the Balkans”.
He said that there's no doubt that what the report is talking is about an US-European partnership to help the countries such as Bosnia and Serbia to engage more deeply and more practically, to move towards membership in the European and Euro-Atlantic institutions. Their audience is primarily the American policymakers.
“We are concerned about Bosnia. You will see in the report which available online at www.eastwest.ngo that we see certain challenges in Bosnia. That over the last 10 years or so, there has not been enough attention, both from the outside but even from the inside, to making sure that reforms continue so that Bosnia can move to where it belongs to be, which is a strong member of the EU, perhaps of NATO and then to be a peaceful and constructive neighbour in the Western Balkans. We are concerned about the mechanisms within Bosnia that are not working as well as they should, that could lead to some problems,” he added.
Munter also said that unless the state Election Law is changed, Bosnia is heading into a constitutional crisis. If the Government is not formed by the start of 2019, then Bosnia would face an issue of how to make a new budget and how would the administrative workers be paid.
This an more can be seen in the interview below:
