Brčko: The Small Town with an Outsized Role in the Western Balkans

The ethnically mixed city dividing Republika Srpska is a thorn in the side of the Bosnian Serb entity’s leader, who advocates separation from Bosnia.

A few months ago, the Austrian Cultural Forum in Sarajevo, and the German Goethe-Institut invited me to go on a reading tour through Bosnia and Herzegovina. Puzzled faces greeted me once, back home after two stimulating weeks, I told my acquaintances that my journey took me not only to Sarajevo, Mostar, and Banja Luka but also to Brčko. Brčko? Never heard of it! Even those with a thorough knowledge of European politics asked where this city with the strange name was located and what its significance was. All the more strange because a remarkable political experiment is being tested in Brčko, a city with both an interesting past that includes some Austrian episodes and a conflict-scarred present. It might be an exaggeration to say that the future of Europe will be determined in Brčko. Yet, how things unfold in the Western Balkans is connected to the fate of this city. Much of what will become of the ideas, ideals, and illusions associated with Bosnia and Herzegovina’s integration into the European Union also has a lot to do with Brčko. The headline of a Neue Zürcher Zeitung article six months ago read, „The key to peace in the Western Balkans lies in the Brčko District.”