EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell expressed alarm on February 20 over "centrifugal trends" in Bosnia-Herzegovina one day after Bosnian Croat nationalists threatened to scupper upcoming elections and form their own region in the troubled Balkan state.
Borrell warned fellow leaders at the Munich Security Conference that the situation was extremely disquieting in the former Yugoslav republic, which is already divided into a Bosniak and Croat federation and a Serb-dominated entity called Republika Srpska.
"The situation in Bosnia is more worrying than ever," Borrell said, "It has never been easy, but the centrifugal trends now are really very worrying."
Bosnian state authorities and the international community are already grappling with runaway secessionism led by one of the leaders of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik.
There are also increasing pressures to find a solution to Croat complaints -- in some cases supported by international legal verdicts -- that Bosnia's ethnically based divisions established in 1995 are discriminatory and must be scrapped.
National elections scheduled for October add to the urgency of efforts, including by U.S. and EU officials, to seek compromises that will allow the voting to go ahead without more of the boycotts that have paralyzed some institutions for years.
SEE ALSO: Bosnia On The Brink Again: Is 2022 Going To Be The Year Everything Falls Apart?On February 19, the body that represents many Bosnian Croat political parties threatened to begin working toward creating their own region in Bosnia unless election laws are changed to boost their representation on a national level.
The Croatian National Parliament (HNS), led by the biggest ethnic Croat party, the HDZ, said at an extraordinary session that a failure to reach agreement on electoral changes would signal a lack of conditions for a vote.
Two elections in a row have seen the election of a Croat from a multiethnic party voted into the tripartite presidency's seat reserved for Croats, heightening groups like the HDZ's frustrations.
HDZ leader Dragan Covic said on February 19 that talks begun last year with Bosniak leaders on palatable election-law reform should resume this week, but he warned that no deal could spell an election boycott.
Many outsiders regard the current crisis as the worst in Bosnia's 26-year history since the Dayton Agreements ended bloodshed between Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats and imposed an ethnically based government structure with UN support.
SEE ALSO: Bosnians Unhappy With Permanence Of Dayton Deal's 'Temporary Solution'On February 21, Bosnian Serb leader Dodik accused "the American and Brussels administrations" of favoring Bosnia's Muslim majority, the Bosniaks, in a way that "destabilizes [Bosnia] in the long run."
Dodik, who has led Republika Srpska allies to declare intentions to set up their own military, regulatory, and prosecutorial institutions to challenge statewide ones, said he didn't see anything controversial in the Croatian National Parliament's threats.
Borrell appealed to the "responsibility of the political leaders in Bosnia to prevent the country from breaking up," urging them rather to carry out necessary constitutional and electoral reforms.
"We will not accept a breaking-up and the disintegration of Bosnia," Borrell said in Munich.
He said EU foreign ministers will discuss the Bosnian dilemma at their Foreign Affairs Council meeting on February 21.
The Foreign Affairs Council reaffirmed the European Union's "unequivocal commitment to the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and unity" of Bosnia in October.