DPC POLICY NOTE 16: The West’s Dirty Mostar Deal. Deliverables in the Absence of a BiH Policy
DPC POLICY NOTE 16: The West’s Dirty Mostar Deal. Deliverables in the Absence of a BiH Policy

Author(s): Bodo Weber
Subject(s): Inter-Ethnic Relations, Ethnic Minorities Studies
Published by: DPC Democratization Policy Council e.V.
Keywords: Mostar-Deal;
Summary/Abstract: Last June, the ambassadors of the European Union and the US to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), together with the UK ambassador to BiH, struck a deal on Mostar with the main Croat and Bosniak parties, the Croatian Democratic Union of BiH (HDZ BiH) and the Party of Democratic Action (SDA). The agreement ended a ten-year deadlock on implementation of a Constitutional Court of BiH (CC BiH) ruling that suspended the Election Law of BiH and provisions in the Mostar city statute that regulated local elections on the grounds they were discriminatory, and returned the right to vote to the Herzegovinian city’s citizens, who on December 20 will vote for the first time in 12 years to elect their local representatives. The deal was praised by the West as a major breakthrough, a long-awaited return of local elites to a policy of compromise, and even an expression of a “thriving democracy.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

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