Speeches

As you know, the Political Directors of the Peace Implementation Council Steering Board have just concluded their first meeting of the year here in Vienna – this was also the first Political Directors’ meeting that I have chaired as High Representative. Tomorrow I will brief the EU’s Political and Security Committee in Brussels. I believe it is abs [...]

Why are anniversaries important? Anniversaries bring us together to remember those events to which we give importance – the birth of a person, an institution, a nation, or in this case – the District Brcko.

I’m particularly pleased to participate in this event because it brings together my home state in Germany, Hesse, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Nordic skiing tournament that has just finished is also a marvelous advertisement for Alpine tourism, one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s most promising – but as yet underdeveloped – economic sectors. [...]

You have over the course of the last two days examined a broad range of issues related to the development of an efficient and cost-effective border security system in the Western Balkans. Allow me to extend my appreciation for your accomplishments in the face of enormous physical, financial and political challenges. Every citizen in the region be [...]

Last year, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) passed a significant milestone. For several years, the overarching goal of the international community has been to assist the country in equipping itself to take part in Euro-Atlantic integration and, in particular, to establish contractual relationships with the European Union and NATO. BiH not only fulfil [...]

I am Christian Schwarz-Schilling. As most of you know, I have just succeeded Paddy Ashdown and I am now High Representative. I have visited Bosnia and Herzegovina many times since 1992, but from today I will live and work here together with you.

Mr. Speaker, first of all let me thank you for facilitating this address to your parliament today. This was the venue in which I laid out my priorities on my first day here, almost four years ago. So it is fitting that I should be here to address you again on this, the last full day of my mandate, in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I would like to thank you for asking me to contribute to today’s discussion, which is part of a rolling and – I’m please to note – constructive debate that has evolved through the series of conferences organised to mark the tenth anniversary of the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The postwar settlement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its implementation under international supervision, over the last decade, has changed fundamentally the way we understand peacemaking. It should also change the way we practice peacemaking.

In 1945, there were five million refugees and displaced persons across the continent of Europe. Almost none returned to their pre-World War II homes. In 1995 there were more than two million refugees and displaced persons as a result of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the last ten years more than a million have gone back to their homes. Few p [...]