EU 'may reduce Bosnia peacekeeping force'

The EU will consider reducing its peacekeeping force in Bosnia by almost two-thirds if elections scheduled for later this year show the country is on the path to stability, Austria’s defence minister said today.

“We will have to consider whether in the medium term we will reduce from 6,700 to about 2,500 troops,” Guenther Platter told a news conference after chairing a meeting of EU defence ministers. He did not elaborate on a possible time frame.

In the shorter term, Mr Platter said the force could be cut to 6,000 “without any reduction in quality".

He stressed the EU was looking at a number of options depending on the situation in Bosnia after the elections but added: “I have every confidence it will be moving in a positive direction.”

The EU took over in December 2004 from the NATO force which had kept the peace in Bosnia since the end of the country’s 1992-1995 war which took 260,000 lives.

Mr Platter stressed there should be no immediate moves to cut the force, but said the deployment should be “re-evaluated” in the light of the election results.

On Kosovo, Platter said the 25 European ministers agreed to ask NATO not to cut its 17,500-strong peacekeeping force given the continued tension in the province as sensitive negotiations on its possible independence from Serbia are ongoing.

Diplomats have appeared optimistic that the heavy international presence in Bosnia can be wound down following an agreement in November among its Serb, Croat and Muslim leaders to unify the country’s diverse ethnic-based entities under a new constitution.

Bosnia has also moved toward opening negotiations with the EU that could lead to its eventual membership.

The country’s new international administrator last month said he hoped his post will soon be obsolete. “This function and this office will disappear in the near future,” German diplomat Christian Schwarz-Schilling told Bosnians in a February 1 television address.

His British predecessor, Paddy Ashdown, had said the October general election should be a target for the hand over of sovereignty to Bosnian authorities, although he has warned that the country will not have true peace until the two principle war crimes suspects, Bosnian Serb war leaders Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, are brought to justice.