The murky aspect of the issue of ‘dealing with the past’ is the leadership of the political parties that gain support in Bosniak-majority areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This part of the political spectrum actually tends to monopolize the claim to concern for the common future and the multiethnic society, and poses itself as the ‘guarantor’ of the country’s integrity.
Many issues would never have been brought up in the official Progress Report had they not been opened and given a well-argued presentation in the Alternative Progress Report of the civic Initiative for monitoring the European integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Domestic human rights organizations and their human rights potential find themselves on the operational and service delivery level of human rights where, in terms of management, transactional leadership is usually required.
Yet, it is still an arena for a different political culture. Voices of many marginal and discriminated groups in BH, such as LGBT people, are starting to be heard thanks to activities of the civil society. In civil society, the very notion of citizenship and political participation is not questioned, but placed within a broader context and critical thinking regarding the very possibility of participation and emancipation within the rules imposed by the system itself.
Contrary to the “obvious” desire of the population, their political elites in political practice seemed to have favoured other issues over the EU integration. In all honesty, when asked, all politicians, without exception, are strongly supportive of Bosnia’s bid for accession to the EU, but when it comes to making any meaningful practical steps in this direction, their determination somehow seems to lose steam.
Even if the general public has certain information on EU accession at its disposal, it is mainly about the political aspect thereof and about the complicated reforms that need to be done, but due to a lack of political will are not.
In order to ensure the realization of the concept of good governance, government institutions are obliged to ensure transparency of their work in a way that timely and extensive inform the public about their activities, respond to the needs of citizens, and to ensure the accessibility and transparency.
Respect for human rights, minorities’ rights and fighting discrimination, are the topics that are completely stepped off the radar in these processes, even though their presence was quite limited earlier, and were connected narrowly to the issues of constitutional changes and the implementation of the Judgement by the European Court for Human Rights in the case of Sejdić and Finci vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In April 2002, the then High Representative, Wolfgang Petritsch, made a decision to suspend the appointment and extension of the mandate for judges and prosecutors, until the reorganization of the judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina takes place.
The Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) between the European Union (EU) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) came into force on June 1, 2015, after the Presidency and both Houses of the BIH Parliamentary Assembly adopted the Declaration of BIH’s institutions commitment to implement the necessary reforms in the accession process, all in accordance with the conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Council of the EU.
Membership negotiations are often not considered as a classic form of negotiations, but more as the candidate’s adaptation process to the legal, economic and social systems of the European Union.
At the time this was perceived as a part of a wider reform project, which was supposed to restructure the Judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina.