THE EU looked set last night to forge ahead with elections this month in the divided Bosnian city of Mostar, despite a threatened boycott by Muslim parties.
After hearing reports from Mostar's EU Administrator, Mr Ricardo Perez Casado, and the international community's High Representative in former Yugoslavia, Mr Carl Bildt, EU foreign ministers decided elections should go ahead as planned on May 31st.
The elections are seen as an important test, not just for EU attempts to unify the city, but also for the fragile Croat Muslim Federation on which the Dayton peace accord is based.
Muslim representatives are objecting to the elections on the grounds that they will penalise non Croats forced out of the city during two different wars, the first in 1992 when Croats and Muslims fought together against the Serbs and later in 1993-1994 when they fought each other for control of the town.
Today, the city, which before the war was completely integrated and populated equally by people from each ethnic background Croat, Muslim and Serb is divided between Croats and Muslims, who live on different sides of the former confrontation line.
As part of the Dayton agreement, the city has been under EU administration since July 1994 and since then the EU has spent £144 million ECUs (£112 million) reconstructing the city, the east side of which was totally devastated. The west, or Croat side only suffered minor damage and is quite prosperous.
There are practically no Serbs left in Mostar, and the Croats and Mu slims have their own separate cities within the city. There are two mayors and municipal authorities, two currencies and even different car registration plates. And, despite nearly two years of EU administration, very few people, especially men, ever cross to the other side.
Muslim parties did not register for the elections before the Friday midnight deadline, and say they will not take part until all the citizens of Mostar forced out of their homes during the war can vote. They maintain that more than 20,000 Muslims have left the city, many of whom are now refugees in western European and Scandinavian countries.
The Muslim Mayor, Mr Safet Orucevic, said. "The elections cannot go ahead until all the people who were in Mostar in 1991 can vote. Otherwise, what we would be doing is legalising ethnic cleansing and ethnic genocide and we will not allow that."
However, the EU administration in Mostar insists that Mr Orucevic is now reneging on an agreement he signed in Dayton. The deputy to Mr Casado, Mr Klaus Metscher, said. "It was clear in the negotiations in Dayton that refugees absent from Mostar would not be entitled to vote, just as those displaced people now living in Mostar who were not registered in 1991 are excluded. And the aim of this was so as not to legitimise ethnic cleansing."
Mr Orucevic says this is just one interpretation of what was agreed in Dayton and that the final agreement, which stated that all refugees should be entitled to vote in any election, overrides the earlier agreement on Mostar.
EU officials here admit there are contradictions in the various papers signed in Dayton, but say a quota system, whereby Croat and Muslim representatives get and equal number of seats on the city council would prevent the Croat side from gaining politically from ethnic cleansing.
Apart from the Muslim boycott threat, extensive intimidation is also feared. Because the register of 1991 is to be used, voters will have to return to the district where they were then registered to vote, and for many this means crossing to the other side.