Few resignations in the Balkans come without rival explanations. On May 11th Christian Schmidt announced that, after five years as High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, he would step down. He will, however, stay in office until the steering board of the Peace Implementation Council, a body that includes America, six big NATO members, the EU and, formally, Russia, picks a successor. Theories about why have proliferated since.
Mr Schmidt was a polarising figure. He used the office's sweeping powers more readily than his predecessor, infuriating the Russia-friendly Bosnian Serb leadership and drawing fire from parts of the Bosniak opposition. Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that his exit followed American pressure applied, in the paper's phrase, "as it were at gunpoint". Mr Schmidt replied that the talks had been conducted "peacefully and without the use of weapons". He did not, however, quite deny the substance.
On his farewell tour of the German press, the outgoing High Representative has sounded crosser with Brussels than with Washington. He has lamented the EU's listless approach to Bosnia and its lack of a coherent strategy. His departure is another sign that America and the EU are pursuing increasingly divergent policies in the country.
A succession fight is now brewing. Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign-policy chief, has said the bloc wants a new High Representative chosen through the Peace Implementation Council, whose steering board is due to meet in June. Washington, by contrast, would prefer the appointment endorsed by a vote in the UN Security Council. That suits Republika Srpska, whose leaders have spent years arguing that Mr Schmidt's appointment in 2021 was illegitimate precisely because it lacked such a vote. It also gives Russia, a permanent member of the Council, a formal say it has not enjoyed since the Dayton settlement's early years. London and Berlin are uneasy about the precedent.
Brussels is unlikely to push back. An American-aligned successor would be harder for Bosnian Serb leaders to reject outright, but may also prove more willing to cut deals. Over time that could revive an old European temptation, namely to let the Office of the High Representative quietly wither, rather than formally close it.