HR Inzko: We need to insist on European values in Bosnia

The Austrian diplomat, currently serving as the international community’s High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina, said in his speech that “securing the lasting peace, stability and a level of prosperity” required a fundamental political change. He added that the leaders had to stop living in the past and, instead, started “looking decisively towards the future.”

“Progress is urgently required to support the judicial system in order to revive the fight against corruption and to eliminate the constitutional anomalies in the electoral system,” stressed Inzko. “We as the international community should not have a double standard: we need to insist more forcefully that the European values we consider vital to our own democracies are maintained in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

The Office of the High Representative was created in 1995, right after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the 1992-95 armed conflict in Bosnia, with a mandate to oversee the civilian implementation of the agreement.