Western Balkans: Dayton Peace Agreement

Earl of Dundee Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Helic on the good timing of this debate and on the excellent way in which she has focused and addressed the question.

It is a very great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, a much-esteemed former colleague in the Council of Europe parliament in Strasbourg.

Briefly in my remarks today, I will touch on three aspects: how reform of Dayton now presents a positive and realistic opportunity; the necessary framework of actions for a new partnership between Brussels and the United States; and then the long-term benefits to south-east Europe and international security, to which so many of your Lordships have referred.

In 1995, Dayton was a huge triumph. It stopped the war in the former Yugoslavia; it affirmed the continuation of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a sovereign country; its guarantors were obliged to make sure that the decrees were properly respected; it set up the Office of the High Representative to see to this; and the truce, not least, has indeed proved to last.

However, as is increasingly recognised, while an effective stopgap at the time, since the late 1990s, the nature of the Dayton accords has itself been responsible for holding back democracy and economic development in Bosnia-Herzegovina. One measure of this is that it is only just behind Haiti and Venezuela as the country with the most severe brain drain in the world. Nearly half the people born there now live in another country and the numbers of those leaving or seeking to do so continue to rise.

Another measure is our own assessment from the beginning that the same arrangements which successfully ended the war, and until they might be revised at the right time, were nevertheless bound to lead to disaster in peace. They would always threaten democracy, since the Dayton architects had to give special rights to “constituent peoples”—Bosnian Croats, Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks—over the rights of individual citizens. Equally, Dayton would always undermine good decision-making, since it vested more powers in the entities than in the weak central government, consisting of a rotating tripartite presidency and a council of ministers, also divided among the three constituent peoples. In view of these inbuilt restrictions, the Dayton accords would always aid and abet as well, as they have done, a dysfunctional judicial system, a distorted economy and a culture of corruption.

From outside the country, two different attitudes have prevailed. The first is that after the provision of Dayton, it was then up to Bosnia-Herzegovina to sort itself out. Yet recently, the second is that, following the conflict in Ukraine, the West is now sufficiently united and prepared to protect democracy and human rights and should therefore make every effort to do so, particularly in Europe.

That reflects the case for a new partnership between the European Union and the United States, to which my noble friend Lady Helic referred, and the necessary framework for its joint actions. Here, there is growing consensus on a variety of expedients, starting with the need for the European Union Force or EUFOR to redeploy itself more efficiently, as my noble friend has also just urged. It should do so in Brčko district, while utilising in Sarajevo mobile units so that they can move anywhere in the country at short notice. Such redeployments would then give a much clearer sign to the Bosnian Serb leadership that obstruction and separatism will not succeed.

Washington and Brussels must insist that carrying out the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights is essential to reform, as it also already is a precondition for Bosnia-Herzegovina’s membership of the European Union. The high representative should remove officials standing against ECHR rulings, while at the same time protecting media and other independent parties who investigate legal evasion, corruption and police abuse. In so doing he has to use the Bonn powers —his authority to restrict those who deny and seek to undermine legal commitments.

Bosnia-Herzegovina’s neighbouring states must support the United States and European Union agendas for reform. These states include Serbia, a candidate for the European Union, along with Slovenia and Croatia, already full members. Here I declare an interest as current chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Croatia, as well as, within the United Kingdom, the consul for Croatia in Scotland.

Conversely, Brussels and Washington can back up western Balkan initiatives to forge a regional common market, both as an economic end in itself and as a facilitator of European Union membership. In that connection the United States International Development Finance Corporation should make use of its new and only office outside the United States, which happens to be in Belgrade, to assist all countries within the western Balkans.

On conditionality, the European Union ought to identify projects inducing reform, yet indicating that receipt of funds in the first place is dependent upon subsequent measures of intended reform not being blocked. Brussels already applies rule of law requirements attached to funds designed to help countries recovering from Covid. Thus, similar conditions should now come to apply to Bosnia-Herzegovina and other parts of the region.

These are just some of the prescribed actions that can improve stability in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the western Balkans. Their delivery should no longer be delayed.