BOSNIA: US and European Union envoys have voiced disappointment after Bosnia's leaders failed to agree constitutional reforms intended to streamline its institutions and help it enter the EU and Nato.
Serb, Croat and Muslim leaders from eight of the main Bosnian parties ended a final round of US- sponsored talks yesterday without reaching a decision to replace the current triple presidency with a single post and to increase the size of the state parliament.
The leaders had pledged in Washington in November on the 10th anniversary of the end of the 1992-95 war to increase the powers of joint bodies at the expense of the institutions of Bosnia's autonomous Muslim-Croat and Serb halves.
But with general elections in March, which are considered a deadline for the constitutional reforms, they only managed to agree to expand the central government to 11 from nine ministries and to strengthen the powers of the prime minister.
Bosnian media reported that the main stumbling blocks were the Serbs' rejection of the idea of a single president and Muslims' insistence on ending the current minimum thresholds of parliamentary votes from both halves of the country for legislation to be approved.