At the start of January Josipović’s predecessor, Stipe Mesić, raised Serbia’s hackles by choosing Kosovo as the location of his final official visit. Croatia’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence has been a significant source of tension for Serbia, and an official visit—during which Mesić received honorary citizenship and the “Golden Medal of Freedom”—did little to soothe that.

Nor too did the decision by Mesić in the same week to reduce the sentence of Siniša Rimac, a war criminal who was convicted for the 1991 execution of Serb civilians in western Slavonia. Though Mesić on the same day also reduced the sentence of a Serb convicted of the torture of Croat soldiers in Bosnia, the Serbian media has thus far, inevitably, chosen to focus on the pardoning of the Croat.

Mesić provoked yet further ire the following week when he threatened to use the Croatian army in Bosnia if speculation about a Bosnian Serb referendum on independence came to fruition. “If [Republika Srpska Prime Minister] Milorad Dodik scheduled a referendum… I would send the army,” Mesić said; Dodik and Serbian President Boris Tadić were predictably, and understandably, outraged.

Some have argued that Mesić is somewhat of a lame duck, not to be taken seriously: after all, he was constitutionally term-limited and so prevented from standing for re-election, and at the age of 75 he will almost certainly see the presidency as the finale of his five-decade political career. It was inevitable, then, that he would see out the interim by making both official visits and some statements he might otherwise have kept to himself. But until Josipović’s inauguration, he still remains in ultimate control of Croatia and her not-insignificant military; such recklessness will always threaten local stability in a region as temperamental as the Balkans.

Mesić, of course, has not worked single-handedly to undermine Serbo-Croatian relations. In response to Mesić’s threats to send the Croatian army into Bosnia, an angry Tadić accused Mesić of being a “warmonger” and threatened to report Croatia to the UN Security Council; by rising to the bait, Tadić ensured that an ill-considered remark was elevated to the status of a diplomatic incident, and that Serbo-Croatian relations were damaged further.

Tadić later announced that he has turned down an invitation to Josipović’s inauguration ceremony, a major—and staggeringly puerile—diplomatic snub. Tadić claimed that his motivation was the presence at the ceremony of Kosovan President Fatmir Sejdiu, but his recent spat with Mesić must surely have played a part.

Josipović, to his credit, met the snub with aplomb, and has announced that he does not see Tadić’s decision as an act of hostility towards Croatia. Beyond this ventured gesture of polite rhetoric, though, he must surely wonder whether this earliest of interactions is a harbinger of struggles to come.

The issue that bubbles insidiously underneath all of this petty squabbling is, in fairness, far from trivial. In 1999, Croatia filed suit with the International Court of Justice in the Hague, suing Serbia for what it alleges was genocide committed during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991–95.

The case has always been a sore point for Serbia, who look upon the devastation unleashed by Croatia upon the Croatian Serbs in 1995 as a greater crime than any they may have committed in the defence of the short-lived, breakaway Serb state in Croatia. Serbia has spent the last decade trying to force Croatia to drop the case, but in January of this year they instead filed a counter-suit at the ICJ which sought recompense for alleged Croatian war crimes during the same period.

In truth, both sides are almost certainly guilty of some or most of the crimes they try to foist solely upon the other. The court cases—in some hopeful fantasy—might then bring some closure to the events of 1991–95, might bring an end to the denial that plagues the two countries; the prospects are bleak, though. Similar rulings on the Bosnian genocide have done little to foster concord there, and there is nothing to suggest that the judicial evaluation of the Croatian war will be any different.

Until the proceedings at the ICJ are resolved, then, they will continue to act as a wedge driving Croatia and Serbia apart, and will perhaps do so even after their legal completion. When he takes office, Josipović’s foremost foreign policy challenge will be to guide Croatia towards a future in the European Union: that future, though, depends on his salving the wounds of the 1990s. As Croatia’s first president not to have been directly involved in the war, perhaps he will finally be capable of treading this most delicate of tightropes; for the sake of the whole region’s future, he must be successful.

Serbia’s progress has been the most remarkable. 12 or 18 months ago, the relationship between Serbia and the EU was frosty at best, but since then the change has been remarkable: the EU has unfrozen the interim trade agreement between Serbia and the EU; Serbian citizens no longer need visas to travel to EU countries; Serbia’s previously Eurosceptic population is now 70 per cent in favour of joining the organisation. At the end of December 2009, Serbia made clear that it wishes to apply formally for EU membership and was received warmly by existing EU members; it’s a remarkable progression.

Serbia has rumbled, slowly but surely, across the starting line of a race that EU officials estimate will take 5–7 years to complete. Kosovo will, of course, provide many of the obstacles to negotiations—virtually all of the EU countries have, to Serbia’s pique, recognised Kosovo’s independence—but it will not delay Serbia’s advancement forever: the prize is simply too great, and even the hardliners know it. Right-wing politicians like Dragan Marković, leader of Serbia’s nationalist Jedinstvena Srbija (“United Serbia”) party, have spoken in recent weeks of the benefits that EU membership would bring to Serbia—something that would have seemed inconceivable just a few years ago. The presidency of the pro-EU Boris Tadić has, it seems, done much to rehabilitate the institution in the eyes of Serbians.

Croatia, too, has made significant progress. Croatian citizens, like their Serbian counterparts, no longer need visas to visit the EU and the fight against corruption within the Croatian government has been moderately successful; in general, Croatia’s functioning institutions and stable economy have been a solid foundation on which to negotiate Croatian accession to the EU. A border dispute with Slovenia over Piran Bay/Savudrija Bay remains the only significant obstacle to Croatia’s membership; it seems difficult to conceive of a future for Croatia that does not involve EU membership.

Serbia and Croatia’s rapid development and willingness to cooperate with the wider European community is something to be praised and encouraged, of course. But as Serbia and Croatia march towards joining Slovenia in the European Union, with all the concomitant economic benefits that brings, Bosnia risks being left behind—a travesty, given the tremendous boost that EU membership could bring to a country of over four million still reeling from the 1992–95 war.

Serbia and Croatia both emerged from the Yugoslav dissolution as territorially secure, ethnically fairly homogeneous states. Once Croatia had dealt with its war of independence and its secessionist Serbs, and once Serbia had dealt with the Kosovo War in 1999, the process of rebuilding—and of working towards European integration—could begin. Though they have not been without their ethnic problems, the fact that the two countries had overwhelming majorities of single ethnic groups made these issues troublesome but not insurmountable—and certainly made the risk of a return to the troubles of the 1990s unlikely.

Bosnia could not provide a stronger contrast. Its peace in 1995 had a jury-rigged air about it: the Dayton Agreement, which brought peace in 1995 and remains Bosnia’s constitution, is rife with workarounds, get-outs and concessions that seek in vain to spark some sort of cooperation between Bosnia’s three main ethnic groups, none of which forms an absolute majority. The federal executive is hamstrung by its own consociationalism; the need for guaranteed ethnic representation at all times means that executive power, ordinarily vested in one officeholder, is split between three representatives—one Croat, one Bosniak, and one Serb—with predictably unproductive results.

To complicate matters further, the two entities created at Dayton, the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, are split almost entirely along ethnic lines: the Republika Srpska is majority-Serb, whereas the Federation is majority-Bosniak with a substantial Croat minority. This extends the scope for inter-ethnic squabbling, and allows entity governments to undermine the designedly weak central government.

Bosnia’s Serbs have always considered Dayton an imposition. Though the Republika Srpska enjoys considerable autonomy, Bosnia’s Serbs have nevertheless sought to undermine central institutions and strengthen the institutional and practical sovereignty of the Republika Srpska wherever possible. This extends to challenging the authority of the EU within Bosnia, and power struggles between the Republika Srpska and the Office of the High Representative are distressingly frequent. Unrest is not limited to the Republika Srpska, though. Many in the Federation challenge the Dayton order just as strongly; some have gone so far as to call for the wholesale eradication of the Republika Srpska, viewing it as a product of genocide and of wartime territorial conquest—with predictable consequences for inter-ethnic cooperation.

Dissatisfaction with Dayton is perhaps inevitable: it was, after all, the product of peace negotiations in 1995, and Bosnia has changed much since then. Reform is inevitable; indeed, it is an essential requirement for joining the EU, since the current constitution conceivably violates the ECHR. But constitutional reform has been made impossible by the fact that opinions on reform are so extreme and so split along ethnic lines. A consensus-based government with no inter-ethnic consensus is a recipe for gridlock, and that is precisely what has happened.

Corruption also remains a significant problem. Corruption is not, of course, a uniquely Bosnian problem; Croatia and Serbia have also had to overcome significant problems with graft, bribery and other corrupt practices. Bosnia, though, has been less successful than either Serbia or Croatia in combatting corruption. Integration with pan-European and global processes, such as the OECD’s bribery convention or the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption convention, has been frustratingly slow; journalistic investigation into corruption is hampered by ineffective freedom of information legislation, and threats against government whistleblowers are frequent.

The future looks bleak. In October 2010, Bosnia faces perhaps its most crucial presidential and parliamentary elections since independence. They come at a time when Bosnia’s inter-ethnic tensions are almost certainly at a postwar high, and when experts predict that the global economic downturn—which has thus far left the country largely unaffected—will hit Bosnia’s economy hard.

The Republika Srpska shows no signs of cooperating with either central institutions or the Federation, and RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik spent much of 2009 clashing with the Office of the High Representative over more and more important issues. Dodik must shore up his core support, of course, but surely he knows the potential price of actually acting on his secession rhetoric—popular though it may be with his constituency. If Bosnia is to overcome the huge obstacles between it and EU membership, its entire population must unite behind that single cause; for as long as it does not, it will surely be left lagging painfully behind its neighbours.