A mining project revives a dying Bosnian town

“If you writeEU that, they will kill you,” says an interviewee after explaining how local politics is connected to crime and corruption. Your correspondent would hardly be the first to address the topic. On November 8th the European Commission issued a scathing report on Bosnia-Herzegovina, writing of “criminal infiltration” in the country’s politics, courts and economy. It also attacked a Putinesque draft law in the Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated part of the country, which would classify many civil-society groups as “foreign agents”.The commission nonetheless recommended that the open accession negotiations with Bosnia if certain conditions are fulfilled. There is no chance they will be in the foreseeable future. On the 28th anniversary of the peace deal ending the war in Bosnia, politics is still war by other means.