By Publio Manuel Isaldi
Everyone knew this year´s 20th anniversary of the first genocide committed on European soil since World War II was going to be special. There was of course the symbolic twenty-year mark, which prompted a flurry of articles from left and right on everything from the infamous UN Dutch peacekeepers who stood aside while the Bosnian Serbs separated women from men to the labours of International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia
Turkey’s diplomatic relations with Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania have seen a boost this week as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan paid official visits to the three countries. Turkey’s accession to the EU, bilateral trade and the fight against ISIL / ISIS were among the issues discussed between Mr. Erdoğan and the respective country leaders. Mr. Erdoğan’s visit had to be cut short because of terrorist incidents in Istanbul.
The EU has decided to implement the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) negotiated in 2005 and signed in 2009 with Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The decision was taken at the meeting of the EU foreign ministers on 16 March 2015, following an earlier joint initiative by the foreign ministers of Germany and the UK. The SAA is intended to unblock BiH’s path towards EU membership, sidelining the earlier condition of implementation by BiH of the European Court of Human Right’s “Sejdic-Finci” ruling.
