Lajčak top international official in Bosnia

Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajčak has officially become the international community's top administrator in Bosnia.

Izvor: AP

Monday, 02.07.2007.

12:37

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Lajčak top international official in Bosnia

"This will be a very important time now for Bosnia-Herzegovina," Schwarz-Schilling said at a brief handover ceremony Monday, adding that a step-by-step process is under way "and everybody has to decide how big the steps are."

Lajčak announced no plans for his term, but thanked Schwarz-Schilling and said "I will continue all the positive things and activities he started for your country."

The international community extended the job in February, after deciding Bosnia's state institutions were not ready to take charge.

Bosnia must establish an effective and at least partially unified police force, as well as simplify federal institutions that overlap with those of the country's two mini-states, before it can move forward in negotiating potential membership in the European Union.

Political deadlock, however, has held up progress in the reforms, with local politicians unable to agree on changes that would make all three of Bosnia's main ethnic groups happy.

After the 1992-1995 war, Bosnia was temporarily divided into two mini-states—one for Christian Orthodox Serbs and the other shared by Bosnian Muslims and Roman Catholic Croats. Each has its own state-like institutions, including a police force.

Bosnian Serbs want to keep the mini-states in place, and are blocking the proposed merger of the country's two police forces, which they fear would lead to the loss of the current system.

Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats are pushing to combine the police forces, and to draft a new constitution based on citizen rights rather than the rights of ethnic groups.

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