This climate quickly eroded as Mr. Schwarz-Schilling pronounced his hands-off approach thus enabling domestic political factors - eager to assume leadership role based not on prudence, temperance and willingness to work towards the common goal – to climb to power by exploiting and deepening ethnic divide (the quickest and surest way to power in these parts of the world).
Those who follow the events in Bosnia and Herzegovina will note that during Schwartz-Schilling’s mandate the country has lost all of its positive momentum towards stability, reform and integration into EU and NATO and has, in fact, severely retreated into ethnic intolerance and bickering that is becoming a crisis of pre-war proportions.