The year 2008 has seen a lot of drama in the Balkans. The secession of Kosovo from Serbia, and Macedonia's stalled Nato bid as a consequence of its unresolved name dispute with neighbouring Greece were events that caused serious tremors in the volatile region and caught the eye of the international community, who put in considerable effort to make sure the tensions would not grow into open conflicts.

Now that the worries surrounding Pristina and Skopje have gradually subsided, it is Bosnia's turn in the spotlight of Europe's attention. The European Union, which has been turning a deaf ear to the worrying signals sent by Bosnian politicians over the past two years while it has been focusing on more pressing problems, finally decided to engage itself with the country that was the arena of the worst hostilities in Europe since World War 2, namely the 1992/95 Bosnian war.

On November 10, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn presented to the foreign ministers of the member states a joint report outlining a "comprehensive strategy for a reinforced European engagement" in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In short, the report envisages that the international involvement in monitoring the country via the Office of the High Representative (OHR) - Bosnia's chief peace implementation agency, which, established by the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, has great powers to intervene in Bosnia's politics, would cease as of mid 2009 in return for a reinforced EU presence on the ground.

The report comes only a week after the European Commission presented its 2008 progress reports on the countries of the Western Balkans. The Bosnia and Herzegovina report hardly featured lots of praise. What is more, it was complemented by a special letter addressed to key figures in Bosnia's politics in which Solana, Rehn and Bernard Kouchner, foreign minister of the EU's current presiding state, France, expressed their "extreme concern" with the situation in the country.

"Nationalist rhetoric from political leaders from all the constituent peoples, challenging the Dayton/Paris Peace Agreement and, thus, the constitutional order, remained commonplace. The most frequent challenges came from the political leadership of Republika Srpska, who have continued to claim the right of self-determination for the entity," the progress report said, in an apparent reference to the statements and actions by Milorad Dodik, prime minister of Republika Srpska, the Serb entity within Bosnia. (The other, a Bosniak-Croat entity, is called Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; the two entities co-exist under loose central administration.)

Lately, Dodik has not been hiding his separatist ambitions in open calls for independence. He has also repeatedly contested the authority of High Representative Miroslav Lajcak, who is also acting as the EU's special representative to Bosnia. Bosniak Haris Silajdzic, current chairman of Bosnia's rotating tripartite presidency and bitter rival of Dodik, has not been an incarnation of the co-operative spirit either. Several months back he caught media attention by naming Republika Srpska a "genocide project" that needed to be erased.

The political instability in Bosnia reversed a decision to close the Office of the High Representative in June 2008, with several conditions being put forward for fulfillment first. In June, the country signed its Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU, one of the milestones on the road to membership. Still, full-steam nationalism completely took over the campaign for Bosnia's October-held local elections. At the end of October, Richard Holbrooke, chief architect of the Dayton Peace Agreement, told Reuters that currently in Bosnia "there is probably more tension than there has been at any time since Dayton".

On November 8, in a response to growing pressure from Brussels, the leaders of the three most influential parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serb, Bosniak and Croat, struck a long-awaited yet unexpected deal on amending the constitution, carrying out a census in 2011, arranging the issues with state property and the status of the self-governing Brcko district, among others. 

The EU, naturally, hailed the agreement. However, it also requested to see the positive trend put into action.

"The Council noted with satisfaction the agreement [...] between three of the main Bosnian parties. It called for these proposals to be rapidly put into concrete form and invited the Bosnian political forces to unite around this project," EU foreign ministers said after meeting in Brussels on November 10 and 11, also voicing their support for the Solana-Rehn report.

Although Brussels has clearly shown it has no intention to continue to put up with the inner political wranglings that are driving Bosnia backwards, the future of its increased involvement in the wandering Balkan state is still not certain. Experts have already questioned the EU's operational capacity given the current problems it faces with the deployment of its civilian mission Kosovo - the EULEX. Analysts and media also say the US stand on the topic should also be taken into account. "...the risk remains that any future EU move to break the impasse in Bosnia may be stymied by a lack of consensus with Washington.

One reason for this is the election of the democrat Barack Obama as the next US president. This means that policy-makers and diplomats such as Richard Holbrooke who were heavily involved in the Balkans under Bill Clinton may well shape future US policy on the Balkans. Mr Holbrooke [...] may regard the EU plan as lacking in muscle. The Americans may well point to the extremely slow deployment of the EU's flagship EULEX police and justice mission in Kosovo as a poor precedent," Balkan commentator Tim Judah wrote on website Balkan Insight.