Source:
http://www.neurope.eu/article/croatia-c ... towards-euCroatia cautiously cuddles Bosnia towards EU
“Bosnian politicians should say no to any centrifugal forces, but at the same time to any tendencies towards imposed centralism.” (Davor Stier, Croatian MEP)
Video of interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28fi9ZCp0lACroatia came into the EU last year burdened by a very heavy political heritage. Its accession had been negotiated by the former prime minister Ivo Sanader, from the conservative Croatian Democratic Party (HDZ). A rising star of the EPP, Sanader had been foreseen for the highest positions in the EU structures, with the EPP wanting to encourage and promote Eastern European politicians, but he suddenly fell, in 2010, following a series of corruption affairs, and is now in jail in his country, having been condemned to 10 years, with another string of trials on the roll. In order to come closer to EU and NATO, Sanader started by showing that the Croatian political right is a modern, European movement, pro-EU and with social preoccupations. He thus managed to shed the dark, pro-Fascist image that the HDZ party had until Franjo Tudjman’s death. He also pushed out of the HDZ the most rabid hardline ultranationalists, getting rid of the nostalgic pro-Ustashi wing and thus cleaning the foundations of the party. Sanader was thus the total opposite of someone like the Slovak nationalist leader Vladimir Mečiar.
He also managed the master move to make the HDZ be accepted the European Peoples Party (EPP, the Conservatives), the main political group in the European Parliament.
In coming closer to Europe, Croatia had to turn its back to Bosnia, where between 15% and 20% of the population are ethnic Croats. Bosnia remains a complex political construction divided between a Serb entity and a “Muslim-Croatian federation”, with a central collegial government that functions in a piecemeal, chaotic way, and which was shaken in the last months by mass demonstrations and street violence.
Croat politicians try to do as much as they can for Bosnia, without giving suspicious signs of interference in another state’s affairs that would be reminiscent of the Tudjman era, with its militarist tendencies and the Croat nationalist dream of annexing parts of Bosnia. Thus, Davor Stier, a young MEP from the —now in the opposition— HDZ party, a former policy advisor to Ivo Sanader and a former diplomat in Washington and Brussels, says that in his opinion Bosnia remains a viable, potentially functional state. “Bosnia has a European vocation”, he says. “The lack of a European perspective would be very detrimental to the stability of Bosnia.”
In this perspective, Davor Strier, and other Croatian politicians, are trying to lobby hard in favour of Bosnia, although the recent riots would rather single it out as a failed state. The violence, that spread in areas inhabited by all three communities, took everybody by surprise and even made some observers speak of a “Balkan spring”after the “Arab spring”.
“Certainly”, says Davor Stier, “Bosnia is in a very difficult political, social and economic situation. But there are signs that the riots and disturbances were at least partly organised by some forces that would prefer to see a unitarian, centralised Bosnia, rather than the federal structure that we have today. On 4 February, we adopted a resolution in the EU parliament which for the first time set a very clear position towards Bosnia and we said there that both separatism and centralism are detrimental to the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”
Nevertheless, the economic perspectives remain dire. Even in the past, Bosnia was dependent on the neighbouring protectors, Serbia on the one hand, Croatia on the other. Its economy functioned thanks to shady deals, such as the one for which the former Croatian premier Ivo Sanader is on trial today (among others): a deal through which Croatia was providing the Bosnian-Croat aluminium plant in Mostar, Aluminij Mostar, with cheap electricity, while receiving at the same time a supply of high quality aluminium. The shady contracts allowed Aluminij Mostar to purchase electricity from Croatia at a price well below market value. The cost of the electricity was set to 28 percent of the price of the aluminium produced in Mostar, despite the fact that the market values of aluminium and electricity are not connected.
Deals as this are not possible anymore today, but politicians such as Davor Stier are convinced that Bosnia could survive on its own, given the proper political attention:
“But”, of course, he adds, Bosnian politicians should themselves say no to any centrifugal forces, but at the same time to any tendencies towards imposed centralism.”
