THE GEOGRAPHY (Foreign Office UK)
Area: 51,200 sq km (19,970 sq mi)
Population: 3.9m (2000)
Capital City: Sarajevo
Peoples: Bosniac (Muslim), Croat,
Serb, Others
Languages: Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian
Religions: Islam, Roman Catholicism and
Serbian Orthodox
Currency: KM, Convertible Mark,
pegged to the Euro.
Main political structures: State-level
Government/Parliament, two
Entity-level Governments/Parliaments
– see below
Major political parties:
Federation of BiH: Party for
Democratic Action (SDA), Social
Democratic Party (SDP), Croatian
Democratic Union of BiH (HDZ), Party
for BiH (SBiH), Democratic People's
Union (DNZ), New Croatian Initiative
(NHI)
Republika Srpska: Serb Democratic
Party (SDS), Party of Democratic
Progress (PDP), Party of Independent
Social Democrats (SNSD), Party for
Democratic Action (SDA), Socialist
Party of RS (SPRS), Party for BiH
(SBiH), Social Democratic Party (SDP)
Government: State Level – Coalition of
SDA, SDS, HDZ, SbiH and PDP.
Federation of BiH – Coalition of SDA, ,
HDZ and SbiH. Republika Srpska –
Coalition of SDS, PDP and SDA
GEOGRAPHY
Bosnia and Herzegovina has borders
with Serbia and Montenegro (SAM) to
the South and East and with Croatia to
the North and West, and a 12 kilometre
coastline on the Adriatic Sea. Its
landscape varies from high altitude
central mountains to arable land in the
north and Mediterranean vineyards in
the south, with most of the major
towns being located in valleys.
Climatically, Bosnian summers last
from May to September and are warm
and humid whilst winters tend to be
foggy and snowy and last from
November to February. Autumn and
Spring are usually short.
THE HISTORY (Foreign Office UK)
Recent History
The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and
Slovenes was formed in 1918 in the
aftermath of the First World War and
changed its official title to Yugoslavia in
1929. Following the Second World War,
communist Partisan Leader, Marshall
Tito, took control of the country and
ruled it for the next 40 years. Although
presiding over a communist regime,
Marshall Tito successfully steered his
own path between East and West and
was a founder member of the Non
Aligned Movement of countries in the
United Nations. Following Tito's death in
1980 Yugoslavia began to slowly
disintegrate which led to the Balkans
wars of the early 1990s. Slovenia,
Croatia and Macedonia declared their
independence in 1991, Bosnia
Herzegovina in 1992. The remaining
republics Serbia and Montenegro,
declared a new Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia in 1992 and, under Slobodan
Milosevic, undertook military
interventions to achieve the integration
of ethnic Serbs intro 'Greater Serbia'.
The policy was ultimately unsuccessful
and prompted a co-ordinated military
response from the UN and the
international community, primarily in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, which eventually
led to the Dayton Agreement of 1995.
This agreement fixed internal borders
in the Western Balkans along lines that
still exist today. However, in 1999 mass
expulsions of Kosovo Albanians,
instigated by the Milosevic regime,
prompted direct action again by the
international community. This led to
NATO bombing Belgrade and other
locations in Kosovo and Southern
Serbia and a joint NATO Russian peace
keeping force (led by NATO) being
deployed to Kosovo.
Longer Historical Perspective
Bosnian Government
POLITICS
The General Framework for Peace,
known as the Dayton Peace Agreement,
signed in December 1995, ended almost
three and a half years of fighting. It
was signed by Bosnia, Croatia and the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY),
and was witnessed by the EU Special
Negotiator (Carl Bildt) and the 'Contact
Group' countries (France, Germany,
Russia, the UK and the US). The Dayton
Agreement provided a new constitution
for Bosnia. Two 'Entities' - the
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
and the Republika Srpska - were
established underneath the umbrella of
the state-level government. The
state-level government is responsible
for foreign policy and foreign trade,
while the Entities legislate on most
other domestic matters.
THE ECONOMY (Foreign Office UK)
Basic Economic Facts
GDP: $4.8 billion (2001), World Bank
GDP growth: 6.0% (2001), World Bank
Aid per capita: 157.4 (2001), World Bank
Further information about Bosnia &
Herzegovina's economy can be found at
Trade Partners UK Country Profile:
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Bosnian Economy has a number of
serious problems, with 20% of the
population below the poverty line and
another 30% close to it. Public
expenditures are excessively high and
revenue collection remains insufficient.
Privatisation moves far too slowly.
Capital inflows from the international
community are sharply dropping off.
Domestic and international investment
is low, burdened by an overly
bureaucratic business regulatory
framework and parallel structures in
the two Entities.
With this in mind, the Office of the
High Representative (OHR) has
recommended a number of measures
which the UK Government and the
international community fully support.
The Bosnian authorities need to
implement these rapidly:
(i) Progress on privatisation
(ii) Full transparency and accountability
of public enterprises, including
vigorous follow-up to Elektropriveda
audits, which showed widespread
corruption and mismanagement in the
three electricity companies
(iii) Implementation of the Bankruptcy
laws
(iv) Strong support for the work of
the Bulldozer Committee, which is
designed to clear away the excess
bureaucracy and regulation clogging
the Bosnian business environment.
(v) Support for a single Customs and
State level VAT
(vi) An operational Veterinary Office
and Standards Institute
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