Here is an interesting analysis with lots of examples from ESI describing how the sulky tricephalic Bosnian donkey will in fact lurch forward if the juicy European carrot (in this case visa-free travel for all Bosnians) is big and juicy and close enough.

All sorts of laws and inter-Entity harmonisations have been happening at a brisk pace in recent months to help lift Bosnia and Herzegovina to the technically exacting standards needed for the EU Schengen space to be confident that passport and related procedures are not being abused:

This record challenges the image of a dysfunctional country dominated by elites incapable of compromise. It underlines the force of EU soft power, if used in the right way.

Recent months have shown that when there is a real incentive and credible conditionality, based on European standards, things can move forward surprisingly quickly. 2009 might yet see a fundamental turning point in Bosnia’s history: the end of the international protectorate (and of the mandate of the Office of the High Representative) and the promise to overcome the visa fence that continues to isolate the country.

One other lesson to be drawn from this (perhaps) is that those who clamour for changing the BH constitution to a more centralised state because the current arrangement ‘blocks progress’ need to be a bit more modest – and to focus on getting both parts of the BH space working smoothly through win-win measures such as these, so that everyone buys in to a project achieving something useful?

ESI’s conclusion:

The evidence from recent months is clear: far from being exhausted, the EU’s soft power and conditionality remains a powerful tool to bring about far-reaching changes that are in the interests of citizens across Europe.

It remains true, as Mark Leonard once put it, that "Europe doesn’t change countries by threatening to invade them: its biggest threat is having nothing to do with them at all."

The EU needs to claim its successes where it can. This one indeed looks quite good.

But let’s stay calm. Some might say that it is a disgrace it has taken the EU and its ‘soft power’ nearly 15 years following the Dayton Accords to make visa-free travel for Bosnia and the other parts of the region a credible prospect. What about the damage done to Bosnia in the those long intervening years by EU ‘soft power’ being clumsily deployed?

Or maybe EU potentates were worried that if Bosnians were allowed to travel elsewhere in Europe freely the whole population might simply move out?