Madam, – Peter Murtagh’s article (Opinion, July 13th) made the point that the European Union needs to be prepared to deter, and if necessary, act with force to prevent future mass killings. It is hard to argue with that conclusion.
Yet despite the lesson supposedly learned from Srebrenica, the EU currently has its head in the sand about the continuing threat of instability in Bosnia. Perhaps because of the success in bringing in the new member-states since 1995, the EU’s ability to assess ground realities on their own terms is more hidebound than in 1995, not less.
Brussels seems intent on withdrawing its already meagre military mission, EUfor, which succeeded a larger Nato force to oversee implementation of the Dayton peace agreement. Should the EU follow through with its planning to reduce the current force of roughly 2,100 troops acting under a Chapter 7 UN Security Council mandate with a small training force without that executive authority, it will be setting the Common Foreign and Security Policy up for humiliation and failure.
Bosnia is currently less stable than it has been for most of the postwar period as a result of lack of long-term strategic vision and realism on the part of the international community. The current approach on the part of EUfor seems to be see no evil, hear no evil. Looking more deeply into potential threats to public security like private security companies might mean having to do something about it.
The EU is on a path to divesting itself of the operational ability on the ground to deter acts of violence or political acts that may precipitate violence.
If the EU wants to protect the investment in peace it has made over the past decade and a half in Bosnia, it will need to maintain an operational capacity and legal foothold in Bosnia to allow reinforcement without referral to the Security Council, and a potential Russian veto there. Otherwise, the Common Foreign and Security Policy risks being exposed as a charade, showing the EU learned nothing from its failure in the 1990s. And without a doubt, the EU will foot the bill whatever it is and whenever it comes due. – Yours, etc,