SARAJEVO / BELGRADE – “At this point it is impossible to project whether the countries sitting on the Peace Implementation Council Steering Board (PIC SB) will agree on a new High Representative. At their last session, they committed not only to appoint the High Representative by 14 July, but to
Marija Stojanović
SARAJEVO / BELGRADE – “At this point it is impossible to project whether the countries sitting on the Peace Implementation Council Steering Board (PIC SB) will agree on a new High Representative. At their last session, they committed not only to appoint the High Representative by 14 July, but to complete the process so that he or she can actually start work“, states Adi Ćerimagić, a senior analyst for the Western Balkans at the European Stability Initiative (ESI).
On 30 June, the ambassadors of PIC SB formally appointed Principal Deputy High Representative Louis J. Crishock as the Acting High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina until the finalisation of the appointment of the new High Representative. In addition, they committed to reaching agreement on the selection of a new High Representative as soon as possible, with the goal of completing the appointment no later than 14 July 2026.
PIC SB emphasized that the Acting High Representative shall fully ensure the institutional continuity of the function, legal certainty regarding all decisions enacted by previous High Representatives and shall operate under the political guidance of the PIC.
Christian Schmidt resigned from the post on 11 May. Schmidt, a German diplomat, has served as the High Representative since August 2021. His tenure was marked by the use of far-reaching “Bonn powers” and political standoffs with the leadership of BiH’s entity, Republika Srpska, particularly with Milorad Dodik.
According to Adi Ćerimagić, it is important that on 30 June PIC SB agreed on an Acting High Representative, and on the scope of his powers, “including the circumstances in which he could use executive powers”.
“Those are situations in which existing decisions of the High Representative are jeopardised, or in which the Dayton Peace Agreement is under threat or attack, and even then only with the explicit political support of the group of countries. That shows that, despite all the turbulence we have seen over recent months along the line between Washington and some EU capitals, they have in the meantime – through intensive diplomatic effort and negotiation – reached some form of agreement”, he clarified.
“Diplomatic efforts are now focused on possibly finding alternative names”
Media outlets in BiH had earlier reported that former Italian diplomat Antonio Zanardi Landi and French diplomat René Troccaz were the leading favorites to become the next permanent High Representative in BiH, stressing that the Peace Implementation Council remained divided, with the US backing Landi and European nations rallying behind Troccaz.
However, there have been reports lately that the new candidates for this post could be Italian diplomat Maurizio Massari and Danish diplomat Peter Sørensen.
Sarajevo-based web portal Raport writes that Massari is a career Italian diplomat with more than four decades of experience in international relations, who until recently served as Italy’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, while Sørensen is a former legal advisor to the High Representative in BiH in 1997, and a current EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue.
“The signals from background conversations are that, alongside Italy and France insisting on their own candidates, with the United States backing the Italian one, diplomatic efforts are now focused on possibly finding alternative names, whether another Italian candidate or someone from one of the smaller Scandinavian countries. So, as I said, it is difficult to project. But the agreement reached on 30 June remains significant progress in the process”, Adi Ćerimagić notes.
In addition, Ćerimagić stresses that the current situation (regarding the appointment of the new High Special Representative) “has no real impact on developments inside the country”.
“The political elites are focused on preparing for the October elections, and the High Representative story is used only as campaign rhetoric — whether by the SNSD and allied parties, who present it as them allegedly getting rid of Christian Schmidt and as proof of a shift in the US approach to the Office of the High Representative and the use of its powers; or by others, who claim that the continuation of the OHR and its Bonn Powers, even under a transitional High Representative, is their own major success”, he concludes.
