ENHANCING COMMUNITY SECURITY IN POST-DAYTON BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA. THE IMPACT OF IDENTITY POLITICS ON EUROPEAN STATE-BUILDING STRATEGIES

Bosnia and Herzegovina have progressed extremely well in the last few years on its path towards the European Union. The latest success was represented by the opening of the accession negotiations after they successfully improved their compliance with the political criteria. But their EU membership is still far away, and they need to confront major challenges. The goal of this paper is to analyze the level of community security by looking at the influence of identity politics in both the internal political life of Bosnia and the European Union's state-building strategy during Ursula von der Leyen's Commission. This paper answers the question of a new Dayton Agreement to be worked upon by the political leadership from BiH and together with the European incentives. By looking at the rhetoric of several levels of leadership in both national and European dimensions, this paper outlines the impact of ethnic discrimination as the key factor that affects the European integration process. As a result, it could be argued that if BiH wants to achieve membership, it clearly needs to create a new constitutional framework that goes beyond ethnic narratives, reduces the interests of political elites, and needs the support of actors such as the High Representative.