SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — The European Union’s foreign policy chief used the 25th anniversary of the peace agreement that ended the Bosnian War to urge Bosnia’s political leaders to overcome their persistent ethnic divisions and prepare their nation to join the EU fold.

“We have to commemorate the past, but we have to look to the future,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said during a visit to Sarajevo for Saturday’s anniversary, adding that the U.S.-brokered peace agreement for Bosnia concluded “one of the most shameful episodes in the modern history of Europe.”

The peace agreement, initialed at a U.S. Air Force base outside Dayton, Ohio on Nov. 21, 2015 and formally signed in Paris a few weeks later, ended the 44-month war in which Bosnia’s three main ethnic factions — Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs — fought for control after the break-up of Yugoslavia.

Over 100,000 people were killed during the war, most of them Bosniaks, and upward of 2 million, or over half of Bosnia’s population, were driven from their homes during the conflict.

While it stopped the bloodshed, the peace agreement formalized the ethnic divisions in Bosnia by establishing a complicated and fragmented state structure linked by weak joint institutions. Over the years, the country’s complex administrative system has allowed its ethno-nationalist elites to take full control of all levers of government and plunder public coffers with impunity while engaging in the same arguments that led to the war.

The European Union accepted Bosnia’s membership application in 2016, but its government has failed to make the deep structural reforms required before the country can move forward with the process of joining the EU. The bloc expects to see changes in how Bosnia’s judiciary and economy are run, intensified efforts to fight corruption, the safeguarding of human rights, among other reforms.

The EU priorities are largely shared by Bosnia’s citizens, but continue to be sidelined by their ethnic leaders under the cover of nationalist rhetoric.

After meeting with members of the country’s tripartite presidency, Borrell said Bosnia’s “future is European” but that in order to get there “authorities must step up their efforts to deliver on the reform priorities.”

The European Union believes that a Brexit deal with the UK is “95 percent agreed” but remains anxious over the possibility of talks once again hitting a wall, according to revelations by Sky News.

According to the news outlet, which claims to have acquired “confidential notes,” there is a consensus within Brussels that a deal is well within reaching distance, but there is uncertainty as to whether the deal will be struck due to remaining disagreements with London.

The notes were allegedly from a meeting between the EU’s chief diplomats that was held in Brussels on the morning of Friday, November 20.

The European Commission’s Secretary General, Ilze Juhansone, who was standing in for Michel Barnier, the EU’s Brexit negotiator who is self-isolating with Covid-19, said according to the notes that the legal text of a trade deal with the UK was “finalised … covering almost all subjects.”

However, sticking points persist in three areas well known to be causes of contention between London and Brussels: fisheries, governance and competition rules.

“On these matters, the UK has not made significant moves,” Ms. Juhansone told the meeting according to the notes, adding that “there will be no economic partnership” in the absence of an agreement in these key areas.

According to Sky, the notes say that Boris Johnson’s government is persisting in its position that fisheries and access to British waters for EU member states must be annually negotiated.

Reportedly, other core areas of remaining disagreement include the UK’s granting of healthcare access to workers from the EU, financial services and intellectual property.

The Secretary General of the EU’s foreign affairs, Helga Schmid, was at the meeting and according to Sky told attendees that the UK had shown “a lack of eagerness to have an agreement on foreign, security and defence policy.” However, she did add that there are gradual changes in the UK’s position regarding this, without providing details.

Ms. Juhansone proceeded to tell the meeting that there was a “commitment to find workable solutions” to the remaining differences on both sides in order to push out a deal by the time the transition period expires, on December 31.

There is some concern that, even if a deal were to be reached that was pleasing to both sides, it would be difficult to get it ratified in time due to the tight deadline. Therefore, proposals have been made to push it through the legislative process in Brussels. One would be for the deal to be written only in English, however France has dismissed this as “sacrificing legal certainty.” Another proposal would reportedly see the EU parliament hold an emergency session between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. Reportedly, a decision is yet to be made on which proposal shall be pursued.

The European Commission and the European Council on Saturday defended the decision to participate in the G20 summit in Saudi Arabia against the wishes of the European Parliament.

Members of the European Parliament last month called on the European Union to downgrade its attendance at the summit in Riyadh over ongoing human rights violations in the country.

The bill was one of the strongest political messages the institution had ever issued on Saudi Arabia and came on the two-year anniversary of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The wide-ranging resolution condemned Saudi human rights abuses and urged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Council Charles Michel not to attend the virtual summit.

Read more: European Parliament urges EU to snub Saudi G20 Summit

However, von der Leyen and Michel ignored the calls, and are at the virtual summit, which began on Saturday.

MEPs received a letter from von der Leyen and Michel on Saturday, which defended the decision.

The leaders said the summit is “a key forum to discuss and coordinate with the largest world economies the major global challenges we face. Such global coordination is all the more important as the world faces one its deepest crisis with the COVID-19 pandemic.”

EU ‘could not be absent’

They said the EU could not be absent from the summit, which will address global cooperation on COVID-19 vaccines, preparedness against future pandemics, climate change, sustainable recovery, as well as trade and taxation issues.

Read more: Divisive G20 host Saudi Arabia gears up for summit

“Participation at a G20 meeting does not mean endorsement of the policies of the Chair,” they wrote.

“This being said, the promotion and protection of human rights are at the core of the EU’s engagement with Saudi Arabia.

“The situation of women’s rights, individual activists, human rights defenders, or the need for accountability for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, feature prominently in our discussions with the relevant Saudi institutions.

“It is our intention to further intensify our dialogue on all human rights topics including civil and political rights, with the aim of mirroring progress Saudi Arabia has achieved in recent years in the socio-economic domain. We will continue to pay utmost attention to this question in the run-up to the G20 Summit and beyond, in coordination with the EU Special Representative for Human Rights and relevant stakeholders.”

Separately, the Commission defended its participation in comments to DW, saying it was too important not to attend.

Peter Stano, lead spokesperson for the external affairs of the EU, told DW: “We have been raising our concerns and we discussed further how to improve the human rights situation — the protection of human rights in the kingdom — and we will continue to pay upmost attention to this question.”

MEPs responding to public concerns

A foreign policy expert in the Parliament told DW that the letter showed the gulf between the institutions of the EU, and that the parliament had once again shown itself to be more representative of the public’s views.

They said the virtual nature of the conference gave the Commission and the Council a sort of “alibi” to hide behind.

MEP Marc Tarabella, Vice-Chair of the Delegation for relations with the Arab Peninsula, told DW that the EU was turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia.

“The European Commission and the Council are clearly turning a blind eye — not only to the horrendous record of human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and to the European Parliament’s clear request for a participation downgrade — but also to all the NGOs, journalists like Jamal Khashoggi, human rights defenders like Loujain al-Hathloul and the women’s activists that risk their lives every day.”

“The EU has lost a big opportunity to be coherent with its values.”

Tarabella said the EU’s “silent diplomacy” was failing to reign in human rights abuses in the country and called for concrete measures against the Saudi regime.

“War crimes against civilians in Yemen, lack of accountability for the state-sponsored murder of Jamal Khashoggi, torture and rape against dissidents, including human rights defenders and women rights activists, go unabated, with no sanctions from the EU of any sort.”

“It is high time to take a clear, public stance consistent with the EU values and interests and impose real costs on the Saudi regime for its reckless, criminal behavior.”