Bosnia talks: Second round starts. A meeting of US and EU officials with Bosnian leaders on 9 October failed to produce and agreement. Today a second round starts, run by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. A US diplomat has told Reuters:
Local leaders must understand that now is the time to take advantage of that attention, make necessary compromises and guarantee Bosnia-Herzegovina a quicker path to Euro-Atlantic integration.
And EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn, also involved in the talks, has said last week:
We want Bosnia and Herzegovina to be a credible applicant for EU and NATO membership. But for this to happen, it needs to stand on its own feet, without the Office of the High Representative (OHR), and be able to govern itself effectively. (…)
Bosnia and Herzegovina will need to reform its constitutional framework to permit its institutions to function effectively before the Commission could recommend the granting of candidate country status. Bosnia and Herzegovina, like any other country, will need to be in a position to adopt, implement and enforce the laws and rules of the EU.
The United States and the European Union are working with the Bosnian leaders these days to help kick-start their Euro-Atlantic journey. But we cannot want it more than they do. (…) This is an opportunity that will not come around again any time soon, and that should not be missed. Now is the right time to conclude an agreement, before the election campaign of next fall’s elections start.
The leaders – and ultimately the people – of Bosnia and Herzegovina must decide, whether the country wants to stay permanently behind its neighbours, in an associate partnership only with the SAA, or whether it wants and is able to get its act together and strive seriously for EU membership, with all the rights and obligations that it implies.
More background: The Croatian daily Novi List thinks that Washington calls the shots in the talks, not the EU.
EU likely to use conditionality against Sri Lanka. After a report has stated that Sri Lanka has violated the UN Convention against Torture, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the EU is likely to withdraw trade preferences. The Times reports:
The EU has waived import taxes on Sri Lankan garments and other items since 2005, allowing Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Next and other big retailers to import billions of pounds’ worth of cheap clothes from the island.
But Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the EU Trade Commissioner, said the concession was almost certain to be withdrawn because it explicitly obliged the government to meet international human rights agreements.
The Commission must now make a formal recommendation on whether to withdraw the benefits, which must be put to EU member states before a final decision around the end of the year.
“The purpose of it very clear,” she told The Times. “The rules are very clear. And if the rules are not kept, the outcome if very clear.”
But Baroness Ashton said the result was almost a foregone conclusion. “It’s very difficult to see any other recommendation than to suspend it,” she said. “The report is clear in showing consistent human rights problems and no action from the government to address them.”
Europe’s power is not hard or soft, but normative. On Esharp, Neill Campbell argues that the EU should not lift its arms embargo on Uzbekistan, because this would damage it’s ethical credibility. And this credibility is, Campbell says, the fundament of European influence in the world:
Europe is not a global superpower in any traditional sense. It is not a “hard power” but includes some of the strongest security forces in the world, and it is not a typical “soft power” but leads on development assistance. It is a normative superpower: a social and cultural leader with a legitimacy that relies on diversity, inclusiveness and the rule of law. Just as a military operation that runs out of helicopters or soldiers won’t succeed, a normative superpower that cannot pull its own moral weight undermines its image and influence.
US Vice President Joe Biden to visit Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania today to reiterate commitment to eastern European defense. Deutsche Welle quotes the director of the Institute of International Relations Prague, Petr Drulak:
It’s expected that on this trip Vice President Biden will bring some cookies to sweeten the bitter experience eastern European leaders had when President Obama scrapped the missile defense plan.
From today’s EU agenda: The parliament will discuss democracy-building in external relations at around 18:00. Watch it live here.
Read on Global Europe: Kurt Volker, former US ambassador to NATO and now at SAIS in Washington, has written down some thoughts on transatlantic relations for Global Europe: We cannot escape each other.
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