Opportunities for change exist in the current restructuring of SFOR and in the declining international assistance. But no policy aimed at Bosnia and Herzegovina alone, in isolation of its neighbourhood, will last. There appears to be insufficient appreciation for the obstacle that unsettled borders creates to all kinds of normalisation and stability. Vagueness about current borders, without explicit procedures for negotiating changes peacefully with all affected parties, maintains the uncertainty, lack of progress, and ever present possibility of renewed violence. The external context for former Yugoslavia remains ambiguous and capricious.
Bilateral relations predominate, based on conditionality that is unevenly applied.
The repeated failures of economic reform, such as in Romania, and of economic revival, such as in Bulgaria and Macedonia, and the growth in organised crime, are explained by local factors, such as political will, populist politics, and habitual corruption. More recognition should be taken of the role of the appalling external environment of the region for making the difficult path of post-communist transition. Western policy towards the region needs a strategy.