Speeches

If you want to compete, you have to go to the ball game -- and if you do go to the ball game, I think we all agree you should play to win. Bosnia and Herzegovina isn’t competing effectively yet – none here will argue with that. And since there is a talented pool of businesspeople, educators, engineers, artisans and others in this country who are r [...]

As the ranking member of the Working Group, I would like to extend my warmest greetings to you all, especially to the representatives of the families of missing persons.Today’s session coincides with the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords. This is an appropriate time to pause and reflect on the results that have been achiev [...]

It is no coincidence that the tenth anniversary of Dayton has been marked by a flurry of constitutional initiatives. This is not, as some of the recent media stories would have us believe, some grand new idea. For the last ten years, the evolution of the Constitution enshrined in Dayton has been a reality of political life in BiH.

The State and Entity auditors have started to make waves. But these waves aren’t big enough yet. No matter how outrageous the findings – theft, incompetence, mismanagement – the popular indignation that now customarily follows the publication of audit reports appears to last only for a matter of days.

Since I took up my duties as the International Community’s High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina three and a half years ago I have often remarked publicly that the days when the future of BiH could be discussed and decided at an air-force base in Ohio have long since passed. Well, this is certainly the right time and the right place to mak [...]

Seven months ago, when I last spoke to the Council, I said that the following period would be decisive. Would the political leadership of BiH seize the opportunity to show that the country has become a viable State, irreversibly on course to European and Euro-Atlantic integration? And as predicted, decisive it was. You have before you our detail [...]

Today’s conference can be an invaluable interface between wealth creators and legislators. It offers an important opportunity to change opinions, practices and attitudes which – in many cases – desperately need to be changed. Over the course of today’s discussions I hope this opportunity will not be missed.

A decade after the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina it is time to ask whether the Dayton process has now served its purpose and can be upgraded to something better suited to the new challenges of European integration. And the simple answer to that question is “Yes” it is time

The 3 October, when Brussels initiated SAA negotiations with Serbia and Montenegro and accession talks with Croatia, was a frustrating day for BiH. It appeared that BiH might have remained the only country in South-Eastern Europe not included in the SAA process. Hopes for the future road to Europe seemed to vanish for a moment. But that would have [...]

Ten years ago next month, 60,000 NATO-led troops began deploying across Bosnia and Herzegovina. IFOR entered the country in force and in good order. Within days of its arrival, military bridges had been erected at strategic river crossings, helicopters dominated the skyline; and tanks and other fighting vehicles had taken up advance positions along [...]