Bosnian Serbs Mull 'Reply' to EU Reform Plan

Milorad Dodik, president of Republika Srpska, has told the French ambassador to Bosnia, Claire Bodonyi, that Bosnia's Serbian-dominated entity is preparing a "practical reply" to the EU reform plan for the country.

The new EU initiative -  launched by German and British Foreign Ministers last November and adopted by EU leaders last December - has already hit its first snag when Bosnian party leaders failed to agree on the text of a general declaration pledging commitment to Bosnia's EU agenda.

During a meeting on Wednesday, Dodik reportedly assured the French diplomat of his general support for the EU initiative that aims to help Bosnia get back on the path of EU integration.

However, a senior Bosnian Serb official told Balkan Insight that the entity government has major reservations about the agenda in its current form.

The so-called "Compact for Growth" is a set of ready-to-go reforms, which EU and other Western officials believe would improve Bosnia's economy and social sector and reopen its path to eventual EU membership.

However, the Bosnian Serb official, speaking anonymously, complained that this exercise was done without proper representation of Republika Srpska officials, while the package of neo-liberal reforms was also unsuitable for a society such as Bosnia's.

The official stressed that the entity wanted to undertake reforms of its own choosing, and in coordination with Bosnia's other entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On Monday, the Republika Srpska government established two new committees to better coordinate economic, social and other administrative reforms in that entity.

The committees for the reform of the business sector and the public sector are tasked with...