Germany’s Push for New High Representative to Bosnia is Worrying

The question is, why is Germany doing this and why now?

It's not as if Inzko is an irreplaceable pillar in Bosnia's politics. He has long become something of a joke among ordinary citizens in the country, especially over his frequent communiques in which he expresses "deep concern" about various events in the country, without ever drawing on his expansive Bonn Powers to do anything about them.

But, in fairness, Inzko's use of said Bonn Powers largely depends on the support of the Peace Implementation Council, PIC, the international body overseeing his Office of the High Representative, OHR.

Office of the High Representative (OHR). Photo: Wikipedia/Bjoertvedt 

And Russia, a PIC member, has spent nearly a decade-and-a-half systematically undermining the work of the OHR, while throwing its weight behind the Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and his secessionist ambitions for Bosnia's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity, RS.

But aspects of Russia's critiques of the OHR are widely shared. Whether they admit it publicly or not, nearly every member of the PIC, including the US, has toyed with the office's closure. This is why, as early as 2008, the PIC made clear the format for the OHR's departure from Bosnia - the so-called "5+2 Agenda".

The trouble is that implementing the 5+2 Agenda would require creating a functional, democratic Bosnian state, which is precisely what the OHR's loudest critics, like Dodik, want to prevent.

Forcing concessions from Dodik could happen, even without using the OHR's Bonn Powers. But, except for the US and the UK, no one on the PIC has shown any appetite to challenge Banja Luka's would-be autocrat, or any of the other malign actors in Bosnia, or their various foreign patrons.