Few days after having visited Bosnia - Herzegovina (see also: „Will there be war again?“), I had the opportunity to join a delegation of the European Council for Foreign Relations ( ECFR ) to Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. We could listen to many different voices, often contradictory towards each other. Political representatives expressed opposing opinions and civil society representatives were unhappy about the lack of progress in building open societies and about politicians, who failed to address the most important grievances of the population in their country and the region overall. The beautiful landscape which presented itself in the autumn sun did not reflect the broken societies. Or as one of our interlocutors expressed it: „the situation is calm but fragile“. The following résumé is my own and cannot be attached to any participant of this extremely well-organized visit by ECFR members.

This was the permanent question we got as we - the Balkan group organized by the IIP, Karl Renner Institut and the ÖIIP - visited Bosnia- Hercegovina in the last days. This is the fear of many people, more than two decades after the “Bosnian” war ended! For me, who visited the country the first time during the war and many times after the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed, this is particularly sad.