Bosnia and Herzegovina

Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, for initiating this debate and for demonstrating such passion for an area for which clearly he still has a strong affection to this day.

I think that it is fair to say that, prior to the elections a couple of weeks ago, the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina was not great. However, I will try to be a bit like my noble friend Lord Lea and look on the bright side. Let us look at the legacy of Dayton: what are we left with? The positives are that after three years of civil war, we have an absence of that war: and that absence has continued to this day. During the conflict, more than 3 million people were driven out of their homes and, as we have heard, more than 1 million have now gone home. Those are success stories and they should be celebrated. The problem is that the situation has not moved on much since then, as noble Lords mentioned.

I take issue with the question of whether we are trying to rush things here. I do not think that we are trying to rush things and I will give a picture of why we are not trying to do so. This weekend I thought that I would swot up on Yugoslavia. I have a copy of the amazing BBC series, “The Death of Yugoslavia”, in which all the key players talked about their experiences and what happened during the conflict. Of course, I could not play the programme because I have it on VHS, which went out with the dark ages. That gives an indication of how long the problem has been going on.

The problem is that Dayton also caused problems: it stopped the war but bequeathed to the countries one of the most complicated electoral systems in the world and reinforced and entrenched ethnic divisions, engendering the political paralysis that we see to this day. Instead of pushing forward and capitalising on the hard-fought gains of the last decade, we have seen a stalemate develop. It seems that international pressure has been reduced, as the world has been distracted by problems all over the world. However, we cannot allow this to slip back further. We have to focus on how to improve the lives of the people who live there.

One of the problems with the set-up of the recent elections is that the nature of that political structure means that things are not likely to change. The same players who were in place before the elections are in place after them, with not much chance of them being replaced. Of particular concern is the continued support for Dodik in the Serb part of the country. Time and again he has asked for Republika Srpska to secede from Bosnia-Herzegovina—although I think that he had his wings clipped a little in the recent elections. We will not know the final outcome for a while: the shape of the coalitions that may or may not develop. Last time it took 15 months to form a Government. We can only imagine what kind of message that is giving, and the instability that it is creating.

There are real challenges ahead for whoever takes over. The economy is absolutely in the doldrums. We have heard about the dire economic situation, with massively high unemployment, particularly among the youth. The situation is so bad that there were riots in the country at the beginning of the year in which 200 people were injured and government buildings burnt. If that did not shock the political class, I am not sure what will. On top of all that, the country was hit by huge floods in May that caused £2 billion-worth of damage and cost the country 15% of its GDP. Let us imagine this country having to cope with a cut of 15% in its GDP as a result of a natural disaster. It is bad enough in a developed country; in a place such as Bosnia it is absolutely dire.

It is important that Bosnia-Herzegovina develops a better-functioning market economy. The EU’s progress report does suggest that moderate growth has resumed but notes that the recovery remains very weak. There are also structural issues that need to be addressed, in particular relating to competition from EU countries. The complex procedures for business entry and exit create difficult problems for foreign investment, and there is a real lack of confidence in the judicial system. If you are thinking of investing in the country, how sure can you be that contracts will be honoured? Have our Government made any assessment of the ability of any political group after the election to tackle these terrible problems?

The other big problem is corruption. It is incredibly difficult to address anything while such endemic corruption exists. Very little seems to have been done to reduce the scale of political patronage. As the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, stated, the salary of lawmakers is six times the average wage. People might not have a problem with that if they were doing really well—but they are not doing well at all.

We have to see reform of the judiciary. There is a question over whether judicial reform can occur without political reform. The European Commission has expanded the Structured Dialogue on Justice to include additional matters, including the fight against corruption. Does the Minister have any idea of what more can be done to secure an increased level of convictions? None of this will be easy, and we need to be realistic in our ambitions for the country.

There is an urgent need to improve the economic situation. The EU’s Compact for Growth and Jobs is an attempt to do this by kick-starting these reforms. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether she thinks that that is likely to be a route through which we will see things develop.

There is an assumption that the eventual path to progress will be via EU membership—although clearly this does not seem to be enough to inspire the politicians of Bosnia-Herzegovina. There seems to be an absolute lack of political will to change, and there has been very little progress in adopting EU-related legislation. Probably one of the first things that should be done is to look for a co-ordination mechanism that will allow decisions to be made and positions to be reconciled on the many issues that are culturally, politically and ethnically difficult. Does the Minister have any thoughts on what the mechanism for co-ordination could look like?

Perhaps the Minister will also elaborate on whether there are two visions within the EU of how things could move on. Is there a difference between those who believe that Bosnia-Herzegovina is still at risk of falling back into conflict, and therefore believe that there is a need to maintain and promote the EU military mission, with executive powers to intervene if there is no longer a safe and secure environment, and other EU member states that perhaps believe that the only way to achieve progress in Bosnia is to move on from that Dayton logic to an enlargement logic, and which think that while the external international rescue mission is on standby, politicians in Bosnia-Herzegovina will not take responsibility themselves? At the start of this week the European Foreign Affairs Council agreed to support the continued presence of military support in the region. I presume that this will be endorsed by the UN in the coming weeks.

It is interesting to ask about Russia and to what extent it is trying to exert its influence in the region. Perhaps the Minister will touch on what is happening in the wider region. We can see that Serbia is making progress towards accession—even Serbia has said, “We don’t want any truck with this Republika Srpska secession”—and now even Kosovo is taking steps towards EU membership, which is interesting. If even this does not stimulate politicians in Bosnia-Herzegovina, I am not sure what will.

The question is: how quickly do we push Bosnia-Herzegovina to move on? Are there more urgent levers or sticks that we can use to encourage political change, or does the Minister think that the Compact for Growth and Jobs will do the trick? Have the riots done something to make the politicians sit up and realise that time is ticking for them? The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, talked about the coalition agreement. One of the key planks of foreign policy was that we want to see the promotion of stability in the Balkans. I wonder, when we are coming to the fag end of this Government, whether the Minister thinks that stability in the Balkans has been achieved.