EU foreign ministers adopt Strategic Compass with reference to Bosnia

The foreign and defence ministers of the European Union member states on Monday adopted a Strategic Compass, which gives a vision of the Union's defence development, and at Croatia's insistence, the document also makes an explicit reference to Bosnia and Herzegovina's constituent peoples.

The Strategic Compass is a document that includes the Union's political and strategic agenda in the next five to ten years.

The section of the document on the strategic environment reads that the EU today “is surrounded by instability and conflicts and faces a war on its borders.” “We are confronted with a dangerous mix of armed aggression, illegal annexation, fragile states, revisionist powers and authoritarian regimes.”

Concerning the Western Balkans region, the document reads that “security and stability throughout the Western Balkans is still not a given, also due to increasing foreign interferences, including information manipulation campaigns, as well as through potential spillover from the current deterioration of the European security situation.”

“In this regard, it is of particular interest to support the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, based on the principles of equality and non-discrimination of all citizens and constituent peoples as enshrined in the Bosnia and Herzegovina Constitution, as well as the reform process on its European path and to take forward the EU-led Pristina-Belgrade dialogue.”

According to sources close to the General Affairs Council that endorsed the document, efforts to make an explicit mention of Bosnia and Herzegovina's constituent peoples were met with some opposition and required lobbying on the part of Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and the Croatian government for this term to be included in the document.

After it was endorsed by the General Affairs Council, the Strategic Compass will be on the agenda of the EU summit on Thursday and Friday, and on Plenkovic's initiative, one of the topics of the summit will be the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.