Description: After Christian Schmidt’s unexpected resignation in May, Bosnia’s Peace Implementation Council would meet to appoint a new envoy to the country who oversees the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accord. Schmidt’s resignation was reportedly forced by the US which has diplomatically engaged Balkan countries in recent months through a flurry of investment diplomacy. The US also reportedly lobbied for limiting the jurisdiction of the new peace envoy after Schmidt engaged with Milorad Dodik on several occasions last year, that put the country in political turmoil. The US lifted sanctions against Dodik last year, despite Dodik’s continued separatist threats and threats of destabilization. Primary candidates for replacing Schmid would be Italian diplomat Antonio Zanardi Landi or French diplomat Rene Troccaz.
Impact: Schmidt’s exit likely corrodes the role of the Bosnian peace envoy and leaves the country without effective international monitoring and peace implementation representative that in turn creates a political and diplomatic power vacuum for continued instability. The US is likely aiming at diminishing EU, Russian or Chinese influence on the Balkans through energy, tech and other forms of economic incentives which as a measure by itself is likely effective but limited, since ethnic faultlines and political grandstanding in the region have been traditional measures of conducting foreign policy between the neighboring countries. Bosnia is currently in a fragile state in terms of institutional stability and political legitimacy as it continues to be split between Serbia’s Republika Srpska and Croatia’s Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina which historically served as extended political arms for both countries in Bosnia. The downsizing of the peace envoy’s jurisdictional capabilities would likely prove as a negative measure in the long – term, especially in case of continued animosities between Bosnia’s two separate state entities.