51. German policies and practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina - A promising future and a lack of initiative -
- Author:
- Susanna Thiel
- Publication Date:
- 08-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Centre for Security Studies
- Abstract:
- Since the beginning of the tragic Yugoslav dissolution wars from 1992 to 1995, the international community has taken new interest in the region of former Yugoslavia and its people. The big amount of foreign aid as well as the multitude of international actors and organisations bears witness to that: Lana Pasic finds that until 2005 at least 9.9 billion dollars have been sent to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) as international humanitarian aid and reconstruction purposes, which is not taking into account the ongoing support from private donors and NGOs.1 In addition to that, a country profile on BiH drafted by the Michigan State University in March 2012 mentions the impressive amount of 15 billion US-Dollars of international aid being given to BiH for a vast variety of purposes since the end of the war until the beginning of 2012, such as humanitarian aid, de-mining and the improvement of Bosnian infrastructure.2 Germany's contribution to this foreign aid sums up to about 680 million Euros between 1995 and 2012.3 This sum provides an idea of how relevant BiH is to German politics – and gives an impression of how relevant Germany might be within BiH and the first decades of this state. It leads to the assumption that Germany is taking great interest in the new Bosnian state and is politically active for this purpose. For the newly united Germany after 1990 that was indeed the case: it was of high relevancy during and after the dissolution wars. It was the first country to recognise the states of Croatia and Slovenia and took in at least 345,000 refugees from BiH from 1992 until 1996. Also, it initiated the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe4 and portrays itself as one of the leading partners of BiH's way to accessing the EU.5 This approach is based on a long, multi-faceted relationship between Germany and the region of BiH: for example, immigrants from German territories settled on Bosnian ground as early as the 13th century6 , the two World Wars had a deep impact on the region – e.g. for the Titoist partisan founding myth – and guest workers came to Germany after the German-Yugoslav guest worker contract in 1968.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Politics, History, Bilateral Relations, Foreign Aid, Culture, and Economy
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Yugoslavia, Germany, Balkans, and Bosnia and Herzegovina