The UN Security Council has extended the mandate of the European Union’s peacekeeping forces in Bosnia for yet another year.

Balkan Insight reported about this.

The European Union peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, known also as Operation EUFOR Althea. Their mission is aimed at ensuring continued compliance with the 1995 Dayton peace agreement.

Western countries feared that Russia, as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council with the power of veto, could block the mission’s extension in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and further destabilise the Western Balkan region.

However, at the meeting of the Security Council, all 15 members voted for the draft resolution on Bosnia and Herzegovina. Previously, Russia had warned it might veto the decision, arguing that “the security situation in the country is stable”, based on the EU force’s latest report to the UN.

Due to the fears of this scenario, on August 5, the US senators proposed a new bill under the name “Western Balkans Democracy and Prosperity Act”, according to which the United States had to support maintaining EUFOR’s mandate in Bosnia.

About 1,200 soldiers in Operation Althea from 20 participating countries, distributed throughout Bosnia. The number of soldiers was increased by 500 in March, following the Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, there has been disagreement over whether Croatia should take part in the mission.

In October 2022, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic stated that Croatia wished to participate in Operation Althea. Croatia’s Foreign Minister, Goran Grlic Radman, wrote to NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg on Monday, repeating the request.

However, on Tuesday, Croatian member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidium Zeljko Komsic also wrote to Stoltenberg criticizing the idea.

The European Union deployed its peacekeeping force to Bosnia as part of the Operation EUFOR Althea on December 2, 2004. This happened as a result of NATO’s decision to hand over its own peacekeeping mission, which had maintained security in the region since the end of the war in 1995.

In August 2021, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine decided to send the national peacekeeping contingent to participate in the European Union’s Operation EUFOR Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina.