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The upper house of Bosnia and Herzegovina's (BiH) state-level parliament adopted two police reform laws Wednesday (April 16th), opening the door for the country's Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU.

They finally accepted a compromise proposal offered by High Representative Miroslav Lajcak and envisioning the creation of seven state-level co-ordination bodies that will assume authority over the country's ethnically divided police forces within a year after the adoption of constitutional reform. Favouring more centralisation of police, the ruling Bosniak Party of Democratic Action and the Serb Democratic Party are criticising the legislation, claiming it offers only "cosmetic" changes that will not improve security in BiH.

The three nationalist parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina have signed an agreement, which according to the local press, could signal the country’s partition.

Should the agreement receive parliamentary support, then the division would be sealed. The three parties – SNSD for the Serbs, SDA for the Muslim Bosnians and HDZ BiH for the Croats - do not have a majority and need the support of other political players.  The Banja Luka agreement was signed only days after the departure of Miroslav Lajčák, the high representative of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who became Slovakia's foreign minister.  It is still unclear if the position of high representative of the international community in the Balkan country will be maintained. Le Monde writes that once again, the international community appears to have no coherent strategy for Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

30 April 2008 Brussels_ Bosnia and Herzegovina will sign a key EU pre-membership deal on 26 May.

To secure the signing of the deal, Bosnia had to pass a series of highly-contested police reforms which was a precondition for the country to advance in the EU integration process. The police reform laws were designed to bring a measure of harmony to the law-enforcement systems in Bosnia, whose functions and powers since the 1995 Dayton peace agreement have been split between the country’s two virtually independent entities, the Republika Srpska and the BiH Federation. The reforms were approved earlier this month following much deliberation by Bosnian politicians. The EU’s failure to sign the deal with Bosnia on Tuesday raised eyebrows among journalists since a deal was hastily signed with Serbia. Read more: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/9742/

The presidents of Bosnia’s six major parties making up the parliamentary majority signed on Sunday a police reform declaration, which is expected to remove obstacles to the initialing and signing of a pre-membership agreement with the EU.The European Unione xecutive welcomes Bosnian agreement on police reform.

The EU should take over as the main international player in Bosnia after the UN's office in the ex-Yugoslav country is closed by the end of this year, according to a new NGO report which also suggests Europe needs more than just enlargement promises to overcome Bosnia's ethnic divisions.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina | The pending decision on Kosovo’s status and Serbia’s recent election results are consuming what little attention policy-makers give the Balkans these days. But by the end of February, over a decade of international efforts to forge a lasting peace and the ultimate integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the European mainstream will come down to one critical set of decisions. Late January saw the overdue and ill-camouflaged firing of Christian Schwarz-Schilling from the top job in the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and as EU special representative in Bosnia. In his face-saving announcement that he had decided not to seek an extension of his mandate, Schwarz-Schilling stated that OHR should not close as scheduled at the end of June. This judgment is almost certainly going to be confirmed in late February, when the Peace Implementation Council, the ad-hoc grouping of governments and international institutions that oversees the OHR, meets in Brussels.

Four months after parliamentary elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the future of the country's constitutional reform package remains unclear. While some parties maintain that amendments agreed last April should be carried through, others are urging a totally fresh start. With politicians, analysts, legal experts and the international community divided, a question mark still hangs over the country's future set-up.

Over the last six months, all progress on meeting the requirements of EU Stabilisation and Association Agreement has indeed stalled, and along with it all progress toward European integration. At the same time, the territorial integrity of the country again is open to question, as Bosnian Serbs threaten secession in the event of Kosovo's independence from Serbia. Schwarz-Schilling was wrong-footed in his dealings with the wily premier of Republika Srpska, RS, Milorad Dodik, who last year called for a referendum in the Bosnian Serb entity.

Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn gave a clear signal to Bosnia and Herzegovina, saying that the EU will not consider closer ties unless the country makes progress on reforming its police and co-operating with the UN War Crimes Tribunal.

Nearly 18 months ago Bosnia's biggest parties signed on to police reform according to three principles spelled out by the European Commission as a condition of further integration into the European Union. Despite their ardent desire to cozy up to the EU and move toward full membership, Bosnia's leaders have made hardly any progress on turning the agreement into tangible change. An attempt by the international community's chief executive in Bosnia, the Office of the High Representative, to move things forward failed last week, with Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) leaders boycotting one round of talks. So why is this particular reform proving so difficult?