Sarajevo - Bosnian ethnic leaders made no progress in a second round of talks Wednesday on constitutional reforms that are key for the country's closer ties with the European Union, agreeing only to continue negotiations at a lower level. The talks, now involving experts of the three relevant ethnic entities and no top-level international officials or local leaders, are scheduled to resume next week.
Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who co-chaired the first two rounds of the negotiations with the US Assistant Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, blamed Bosnian politicians for the lack of progress.
"We were telling them, 'accelerate, accelerate,' but they were responding with 'nothing, nothing'," Bildt told a press conference after the meeting.
The United States and the European Union have proposed the constitutional reform in a bid to change Bosnia's complex legislative and governing system and to limit crippling deadlocks.
The international community partitioned Bosnia in 1995 along ethnic lines to end war in the country, creating two nearly sovereign entities, the Serb Republic and the Federation Bosnia-Herzegovina of the majority Muslim Bosniaks and Croats.
The peace plan also divided the governing authority and gave each of the groups the effective power of veto on bills in the shared central institutions.
Amid persistent mistrust and bickering of politicians, the system created an opportunity for obstruction, which has stalled Bosnia's progress toward EU and NATO membership.
The reform proposed by Washington and Brussels would transfer authority from the entities, which the Serbs vehemently oppose.
Serb and Croat leaders, however, have rejected the plan. Muslim politicians are divided - the member of Bosnian presidency, Haris Silajzcic, has dismissed it, while the head of the leading Muslim party, Sulejman Tihic, has called it "conditionally acceptable."
Brussels had offered Bosnia to embark a fast-track procedure to obtain the status of an official EU membership candidate once the constitutional reforms were implemented.
