US, EU delivered Bosnia 'electric shock': Solana

(SARAJEVO) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Wednesday described as an "electric shock" the message he and US Vice President Joe Biden delivered to Bosnian leaders to shape up on reforms.

"Talking about the visit of yesterday, I qualified it... as a certain type of electric shock," Solana told journalists in Sarajevo a day after he accompanied Biden on the Bosnian leg of a three-day Balkans tour.

"We passed a very clear message about how to move the country forward toward the EU," Solana added.

"I believe that (the US and the EU) together with the leaders of the country... will be able to move it forward and try to get it out of this stalemate."

Bosnia's EU-backed reform process has been stalled for more than a year due to political tensions which escalated recently with Serbs threatening secession and some Muslim leaders calling for the abolition of the Serb entity.

Asked whether he expected local politicians to unblock soon the process of implementing Brussels-required reforms, Solana replied: "I hope so very much."

In his address Tuesday to the Bosnian parliament, Biden sternly rebuked lawmakers, warning they faced a stark choice between EU and NATO integration or a return to bloody conflict unless they dropped nationalist rhetoric.

Biden and Solana met with Bosnian political leaders behind closed doors.

The peace deal that ended Bosnia's 1992-1995 war split the country into two semi-autonomous entities -- the Serbs' Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.

The two are linked by central institutions that are powerless to push through reforms required of the country in its bid to join the 27-nation EU bloc.