BRUSSELS: Struggling to keep a lid on tensions over the future of Kosovo, the European Union and Nato are belatedly waking up to a wider threat to Balkan stability in ethnically divided Bosnia, Western diplomats say.

Bosnia’s international peace overseer, Miroslav Lajcak, at the heart of a political crisis over his bid to break a deadlock between ethnic rivals, warned both organisations this week to expect the situation to get worse in the coming weeks.

Feuding among Serbs, Croats and Muslims has prompted fears that the dysfunctional state created under the Dayton peace accords that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war could break apart.

Goaded by Moscow and Belgrade, the Bosnian Serb Republic could decide to go its own way in reaction to Kosovo declaring independence unilaterally from Serbia once last-ditch peace talks end on Dec 10, diplomats say.

“Bosnia does not function. There is no agreement between the two halves on the most basic things,” a senior Western diplomat said of divisions between the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation that have led to political paralysis.

“Next year will show that Kosovo is one dilemma but Bosnia is many dilemmas and the two are partly linked,” said a senior EU politician, predicting Bosnia could become more of a headache for the EU than Kosovo Albanians’ bid to separate from Serbia.Lajcak is battling to end a showdown with the Bosnian Serbs over his decision last month to revamp central government voting rules that have deadlocked key reforms such as the creation of a unified national police force.

The stalled police reform prevented Bosnia signing a first agreement on the road to European Union integration this week, while Serbia was allowed to initial its pact with Brussels despite failing to apprehend key war crimes indictees.

Bosnian Prime Minister Nikola Spiric, an ethnic Serb, quit last week in protest at Lajcak’s move, and the Bosnian Serbs, who say the measures undermine the autonomy they won at the end of the war, are threatening to walk out of government too.

The crisis caught Western capitals off guard as they focused on salvaging a UN-brokered plan to set Kosovo on the path to EU-supervised independence, despite opposition from Belgrade and its allies in Moscow.

Portraits of President Vladimir Putin carried by Bosnian Serb protesters this week hardened Western suspicions that Russia and Serbia are fuelling the tensions in Bosnia as part of a wider Balkans power play over Kosovo.

“It is possible (Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav) Kostunica sees the Bosnian Serb republic as compensation for Kosovo,” said a Western diplomat of fears that Belgrade may seek to wrest control of the Bosnian Serb Republic in retaliation for losing sovereignty over Kosovo.

“Belgrade is clearly stirring the pot in Bosnia,” said James Lyon, senior Balkans adviser for the International Crisis Group.

“There are people in the Serb government who’d really like to see Bosnia fall apart. There is a very strong impression that Serbia is doing all it can, with Russian support, to make this happen,” he said.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn played down the risk of contagion in the Western Balkans on Thursday after throwing his support firmly behind Lajcak.

“I don’t see any reason why the Kosovo status process should provoke any instability in any other country of the Western Balkans and I sincerely hope that nobody uses that as an excuse or pretext to provoke any instability in the region,” he said.

But if Western fears prove correct that Belgrade and Moscow are wielding behind-the-scenes influence, it is not clear how the EU and the US-led Nato alliance can counter it.

A European Commission report this week underlined how much Bosnia’s once bright hopes of joining the bloc were being derailed by ethnic rivalries.

“We don’t want such a state. After so many years and billions of euros invested, we have to ask ourselves what are the alternatives,” said the senior EU politician, suggesting the bloc might have to begin work on an alternative framework to the institutions created by the Dayton accords.

Lyon said the EU’s ‘schizophrenic foreign policy’ was part of the problem. In late October, major EU powers protested to Serbia over its meddling in Bosnia.

Yet days later, despite Belgrade’s belligerent reply, the EU initialled the agreement.

“It becomes painfully obvious the EU did that only because of Kosovo, and for no other reason. Serbia clearly does not meet the criteria.

Far from being a guarantor of regional stability, it is the leading source of instability in the Balkans,” he said.—Reuters