By: Saša Gavrić
Originally published in: Perspectives,
Publisher: Heinrich Böll Foundation
The process of the EU integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina has developed in a wholly atypical fashion. For this reason, the position of the civil society within it has likewise been unusual and different than in other countries. It will be interesting to follow how the position of civil society organisations will develop after Bosnia and Herzegovina has achieved candidate state status and whether the European Union will finally recognise the civil society as a partner, rather than an “unconstructive” actor, as an employee of the European Union delegation called human rights organisations.
Like state, like civil society
Although a large majority of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina declare their support for association with the EU, hoping that this will bring about a new period of wellbeing and better living in general, few among the citizens or from within the civil society have engaged with the integration process itself.
The stabilisation and association agreement, screening, chapters, negotiating teams, subcommittees, coordinating mechanism… all of these have become terms that appear regularly in texts featured on web portals and newspapers, in evening news broadcasts and on political TV shows. Yet there are not many activists who know what exactly all this is about. It is as if we have become bogged down in a Dayton kind of day-to-day life, which we will not and cannot abandon, as entering a new arena requires a great deal of adapting and learning, which many are not willing to undertake.
I will even venture to say that a great majority of notable and influential civil society actors (mostly citizens’ associations, foundations and coalitions), who perform small miracles within their spheres in the face of perhaps limited resources and antagonism from within political parties, still have not grasped the potential and the danger that EU association brings with it and all that could happen if we are not more present, more active, and perhaps even a few steps ahead of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian political elite.
Learning from the Croatian example, early organising in Bosnia and Herzegovina
As if through fog, some of us have recognised the need to form alliances and work together in this sphere. At the initiative of partners from civil society organisations abroad, an idea emerged in 2012 to start preparing and organising. In this, the Croatian civil society served both as a good example and a bad one.
On the one hand, the organisations from our neighbouring country did a fantastic job, contributing to key issues in the sphere of the rule of law and protection of human and minority rights, compelling its government to advance real reforms, all by means of pressure from the European Commission in Bruxelles. On the other hand, the Croatian example is a poor one, considering the fact that the mobilisation and involvement of civil society organisations took place at a very late hour, only a few years before Croatia was to become a member of the European Union. For this reason, the Platform 112, a Croatian civil society coalition for strengthening the rule of law, is a great example and an indicator for Bosnian-Herzegovinian activists.
This was the reason why, several years before Bosnia and Herzegovina even began considering the possibility of applying for candidacy, the Initiative for monitoring the European integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina was founded.1
Every year since then, including 2015, the Initiative has published its Alternative Progress Report, thus offering a “response” to the European Commission and its official Progress Report, published every October. Although the Progress Report seems like a dry and insignificant instrument, it actually represents an excellent platform for lobbying and influencing the agenda. It is thus symptomatic that for years, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina has ignored civil society demands for work to be done on drafting, adopting and implementing a multi-year strategy to combat discrimination. However, when the issue of a strategy for preventing and combating discrimination appeared in a sentence in the 2014 progress report, it suddenly imposed itself onto the agenda of the Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are convinced that 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 Initiative for monitoring the European integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina and in written interventions by member-organisations.
Nevertheless, it has to be noted that it took us three years to arrive at a situation where the Initiative has developed and expanded its membership to the extent that it has created the conditions necessary to raise all the issues linked to the so-called political criteria for integration in a responsible and professional manner.
Excluded in inclusion
“Civil society, civil society, civil society…” EU functionaries and officials keep repeating the lines of their alleged determination that civil society organisations be involved in the integration process.
Compared to what the relationship was like several years ago, it has to be said that relations have greatly changed. While several years ago it would have been inconceivable that a European Union official would even meet civil society organisation representatives, or actively listen to what they have to say, today things look different. Even the highest-ranking actors, such as High Representative Federica Mogherini and the enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn, hold regular and intensive meetings with civil society organisations during their regular visits, entering a dialogue with those who ought to give a critical representation of day-to-day life and thus the political reality of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Signs of “opening up” could also be recognised in the framework of the Structured Dialogue on the judiciary, a special mechanism set up to soothe the passions of Milorad Dodik, when, last year, civil society was invited to take active part in one of the meetings within the framework of this negotiating forum.
However, these moments of opening up and dialogue are still exceptions to the rule. This was shown for instance by the negotiations regarding the so-called Reform Agenda, in which civil society in the broadest sense, including trade unions, human rights organisations and professional associations, was nowhere to be seen, even though its participation had been announced. Additionally, it was not only civil society that had been excluded from this process, but also state and entity parliaments as the ultimate decision-makers. The exclusion of the civil society can also be seen in the process of drafting and adopting some of the legislation that is of critical importance to the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Special relationships with Bosnian-Herzegovinian leaders
The attitude of EU actors towards civil society stems from the specific relations with Bosnian-Herzegovinian political leaders cultivated by EU institutions and officials. The European Union and its member states have a need to play an active role in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which for instance gave rise to the “Butmir package” of constitutional reforms (2009), the Structured Dialogue on the judiciary and the negotiations on the implementation of the ruling in the Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina case, which were conducted by the former enlargement commissioner Stefan Füle (2013/2014).
All these special arrangements, the likes of which we never would have witnessed in the cases of other potential candidate states for European Union membership, and which were aimed at incompetent and manipulative Bosnian-Herzegovinian political party leaders, possess two characteristics. Beside the fact that all these attempts to solve the “Bosnian issue” have resulted in collapse and total failure, all three of them were conducted in near-total secrecy, without civil society participation. It is only through extraordinary and remarkable effort and presence in the political arena that civil society can impose itself as an actor, rather than that being in the interest of the institutions or European Union actors. Here we will present two cases that demonstrate the attitude of the European Union towards civil society.
Case study I: the Labour Act of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Liberalisation of the labour market is one of the steps that needed to be taken in every state that strove for membership in the European Union. West-European capitalism must be preserved even before we reach the stage where we can start to consider European Union membership. The actors that appeared in public on behalf of the EU have been sending very clear messages that this legislation has to be passed, that Bosnia and Herzegovina is trapped in Titoist legacy, and that we are the only state without an adequate and “modern” labour act.
The European Union was not bothered by the fact that parliamentary procedure was not given due respect in the process of adopting this legislation, that the Act was not offered up for public consultation (if at least via a website), and that not a single public discussion was held. Aside from unstructured talks with labour unions and employers’ associations, not a single other civil society actor was given the opportunity to view the Act before it was to be adopted in Parliament two days later. In return, the government and the governing parties met with support and words of praise from the European Union for taking this important step forward.
It will be interesting to see how the European Union explains why the Labour Act of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has not been harmonised with the anti-discrimination EU directives, as well as, potentially, other sources of EU law, and why it violates other international obligations (such as by retaining the provision prohibiting women from working in mines).
Case study II: The Act on the Institution of the Human Rights Ombudsman of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Anti-discrimination Act of Bosnia and Herzegovina
It needs no repeating that the Institution of the Human Rights Ombudsman is key to the overall protection of human rights within the BH political system. It was interesting to learn that the Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees of Bosnia and Herzegovina has a working group working on reforms to the legislation that regulates the work of this institution, and that the public has not been made aware of this fact, at least through the Ministry website. Thus, having learned of this process, the Initiative for monitoring the European integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina has decided to take active part in drafting the law, sadly remaining the sole civil society actor to show interest in this issue. Unfortunately, multiple memos to the ministry were initially ignored, while the EU delegation itself did not consider it necessary for civil society organisations that showed interest in the work of this working group to be part of the process and, furthermore, to point this out to the ministry – even though the Initiative has asked for support on several occasions.
In this case too, it has become clear that outstanding and extraordinary effort and engagement are needed for civil society to even become an actor and partner. The Initiative for monitoring the European integration has only gained the opportunity to participate in drafting the Act after draft measures on enhancing the legislation on the institution of the Ombudsman were made public, and after model legislation on the institution of the Human Rights Ombudsman was drafted as an alternative solution to the Ministry draft. Throughout this time, the European Union took the position that the place of civil society is at the end of the process, that is, in public consultations, a pro forma activity that may or may not be undertaken, and which almost never results in relevant changes to the ministries’ draft legislation.
A similar situation arises in the case of the Anti-discrimination Act. Although the initial plan of the Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees was that the representatives of an NGO coalition that had been active for more than 5 years on issues related to combating discrimination were to be involved in the Ministry’s working group (among other things, this coalition has pursued both the key, and the majority of, court proceedings concerning issues of discrimination), the European partners believed that civil society organisations did not belong in the working group because they were being “unconstructive”. It is only thanks to interventions from other partners on their behalf that civil society actors were invited to present their suggestions at the start of the process of drafting amendments to the Anti-discrimination Act.
“Make do and mend”
These experiences have shown us that, even with the best of intentions on the part of officials such as Mogherini and Hahn, the rule to “make do and mend” still holds. Civil society organisations have to show greater interest and dedication, and use the process of European integration to work on concrete issues that are of interest to the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Civil society organisations need to focus their work primarily on the relevant governments and parliaments, so that these bodies may become our natural partners and interlocutors.
The German-British, or new European initiative for Bosnia and Herzegovina is another in a series of special arrangements that seek to give Bosnian-Herzegovinian leaders an opportunity to drag themselves out of the ten-year crisis. It is to be hoped for that the European Union will not repeat past mistakes, that this process will be conducted with transparency, clarity and civil society participation. If the opposite is to occur, I am afraid that the British-German initiative will also meet a similar fate to the aforementioned special arrangements and efforts by the European Union. And if for nothing else, then at least for the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose life is hard and hopeless, we need to strive for genuine change.
1 You can follow the work of the Initiative for monitoring the European integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the website www.eu-monitoring.ba. Ever since its founding, the initiative has closely cooperated with the BH office of the Heinrich Böll Fundation, having received its support every year.
Translated to English by Hana Dvornik