Murphy: In this environment, it may be a risky bet to place all your chips on EU accession process

In a post on X, Murphy recalled that next week the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) will meet to consider the future of the Office of the High Representative and potentially appoint a new High Representative.

''The key questions PIC member states must ask themselves as they make these decisions are: First, what is their core strategic interest in BiH? Second, can the OHR with the Bonn Powers advance that interest? Third, if so, who is best suited to serve as a High Representative?,'' said Murphy.

As he further stated, for 30 years, the U.S. identified BiH territorial integrity as its core strategic interest in BiH. This reflected not just the United States’ values but its hard security interests. That’s because, again for 30 years, the U.S. understood that challenges to BiH’s territorial integrity risked violence inside BiH and the Western Balkans.

''The signals coming from the current administration suggest this 30-year bipartisan policy has come to an end. In its place, the administration has embraced “local ownership” along with Mr. Dodik – a man who over the past several days has suggested the RS requires its own armed forces, called into question BiH’s territorial integrity, and underscored his goal is to dissolve BiH. Separately, calls for the creation of a third entity are spiking and a leading Bosniak ethnonationalist has proposed the creation of mega-cantons within the Federation (FWIW, this sounds an awful lot like an endorsement of a third entity). This is critical context for next week’s PIC discussions,'' Murphy wrote.

He stated that for everyone else around the PIC table, there does not seem to be any ambiguity in their support for BiH’s territorial integrity.

That said, there may be some misplaced faith in the power of EU accession to drive a reform process that overcomes BiH’s internal political problems and stabilizes it for the long-term. In my judgment, the evidence for this faith is limited. Regardless, right now in BiH one ethnonationalist leader is threatening to walk away from the EU accession process if does not take place on his terms, while another is providing the first with de facto political support, belying claims he and his party embrace the EU 100 percent. In this environment, it may be a risky bet to place all your chips on the EU accession process as the best means of safeguarding BiH’s territorial integrity,'' he believes.

He stressed that the OHR is not about ''nation building'' or constructing someone’s ideal of a ''civic state'' at the expense of BiH’s constituent peoples. It is about the implementation and defense of the DPA.

''Among other things, this means protecting BiH and its institutions, including those agreed upon by post-war governments, from attempts to undermine them. The OHR cannot do this with a supine High Representative who lacks PIC support to use his authorities when necessary. If the PIC judges that this is no longer necessary or desired, then the OHR is no longer necessary. In that case, the countries around the PIC table will need to come up with another credible strategy for protecting BiH from those seeking to destroy it,'' Murphy concluded.