Bosnia High Representative Ashdown concerned about risk of economic crisis

VIENNA, 4 June 2003 - Lord Ashdown, the High Representative and European Union Special Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), said on Wednesday he was seriously concerned about the risk of economic crisis in the country.

"I do not believe Bosnia and Herzegovina will move back into ethnic conflict but I am seriously concerned about the economic crisis that lies ahead of us," he told the 55 states represented on the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna.

Lord Ashdown praised the "sterling work" of the OSCE Mission in Sarajevo in helping to complete the emergence of the country from the post-conflict era.

"The OSCE is the unquestioned leader in creating civil society," he said. "It has incomparably the best network into the grass roots in some of the key areas needed to build civil society." The OSCE had also played a crucial role in moving forward the defence reform agenda.

Lord Ashdown said Bosnia and Herzegovina needed to carry out sweeping economic reform and in particular to rein in spending on the institutions of government, which include 11 duplicated structures for fewer than 2 million people.

"Sixty percent of government spending goes on government. No state can survive when it spends so much on governing itself and so little on its citizens."

During an address to a special session of the 55-nation OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on Wednesday, 4 June, Lord Ashdown emphasized the close co-operation between the Office of the High Representative and the 800-strong OSCE Mission to BiH.

Lord Ashdown said Bosnia and Herzegovina had made considerable progress in the past seven years but this was not yet irreversible. Two key risks to continued progress were the impatience of the international community and the lack of self-confidence of the people of the country in their own ability to achieve change.

He urged the international community to remain committed to the country. "Stay with us. Finish the job," Lord Ashdown said. "To leave precipitately now would be to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

He singled out for praise the OSCE's current priority role in promoting a thorough reform of the education system, but added that in the year ahead he anticipated an equally challenging role for the OSCE in improving the performance of government, particularly at the local level and making the country more "investor friendly".

"After a year of progress the priorities for me still remain creating justice and jobs: building confidence in the rule of law and underpinning an economy that can generate employment for its own population", he said.

The two priorities were inter-connected, with the need to tackle criminal organizations that worked through corruption and obstructed both the peace process and economic recovery.

"We have created the weapons, we have the new State courts and criminal code. The next step is to start locking up some of those who have held Bosnia and Herzegovina to ransom for too long," he said.

Lord Ashdown's comments were echoed by Ambassador Robert Beecroft, Head of the OSCE Mission to BiH, who added that reinforcing the work of the Office of the High Representative, consistent with the mandate of the Mission, represented a model of co-operation between international organizations in post-conflict rehabilitation of a country.