High Representative Leaves BH

The High Representative has already sent a letter to Angela Merkel saying he does not want to extend his mandate after July 30, 2007.

Christian Schwarz-Schilling, the UN High Representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina, will not extend his mandate after July 30, 2007.

Swartz- chilling said today that after a conversation with Chancellor Merkel on January 11, he had sent her a letter notifying her that he would not request a new mandate after July 30 this year.

The Piece Implementation Council (PIC), which is authorised for making decisions, and the Council’s steering board will reach a decision on that question by the end of February.

OHR has to remain in some form

Schwarz-Shilling thinks that the situation in BH and the region still demands the presence of the international community.

The Office of the High Representative and Bonn authorities should remain in some form. He had relayed this message to capital cities and he was standing by it, said the High Representative.

On the other hand, a daily newspaper ‘Dnevni avaz’ came to information from an unnamed source that Schwarz-Shilling would like to stay in BH, but ambassadors from the USA, Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy cannot oblige his ambition to remain on that duty after July 30, 2007.

By the end of July 2007, there will be a very small OHR team led by a new high representative who will have the ‘Bonn authorities’, which means imposing laws and officials’ dismissals.

 OHR still in BH because of Milorad Dodik

An office of a special representative of the EU will be formed having the function performed by Schwarz-Schilling hitherto. There will be a few hundred employees and they will work hard on getting BH closer to the Union. The EUSR will have an extraordinarily powerful mandate and the mechanism to force BH politicians, as well as those in the region, to be constructive, the unnamed international community official told the ‘Avaz’.

The USA  have allegedly changed its original decision about rescinding the OHR after being faces with the combative rhetoric of the Prime Minister of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, writes ‘Avaz’.