New book honours top diplomat and crisis manager Wolfgang Petritsch - Part 1

In celebration of the 60th birthday of Wolfgang Petritsch, a new book honours Austria’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, former high representative for Bosnia Herzegovina and former head of Vienna’s Department for International Relations, recognizing him as a top diplomat, successful international trouble shooter and an outstanding, personable individual and role model.

Europe: Conflict resolution – reform – peace, democracy and humanity

The book is in English and bears the title: “Conflict and Renewal: Europe Transformed”. Its 407 pages include contributions by an internationally diverse group of nearly sixty writers, including several state presidents, a former top American diplomat, the EU representative for common foreign and security policy, experts, artists, authors and journalists. The book is published by Hannes Swoboda, former Austrian Social Democratic member of the EU parliament, and Christophe Solioz, secretary general of the Center for European Integration Strategies (CEIS), with offices in Geneva, Vienna and Sarajevo. The contributors pay tribute to Petritsch for his efforts to bring about peace in the Balkans, especially Bosnia and Kosovo, for his work on banning land mines, his commitment to human rights, overcoming extreme nationalism, and organizing a new, enlarged common Europe based on peace, social justice, humanity and prosperity.

Swoboda: Slovenian-speaking minority in Carinthia – influence of Kreisky

In their introduction to the book, Hannes Swoboda and Christophe Solioz express their own respect and admiration for Wolfgang Petritsch. They pay tribute to an outstanding diplomat, international trouble shooter in the Balkans, and an author with a wide range of interests with the vision more of a statesman than of a political executive. Swoboda describes Petritsch as a “zoon politicon” or political animal, a diplomat who also has politics in his blood, who has unique leadership qualities; a modern crisis manager who understands the historical roots of conflicts, who can talk to all the parties involved, and who knows how to write history – a man of his day, popular, whose opinion and advice people seek, a true European who never forgets the cultural side of human life. He states that the biggest influences in Petritsch’s life were his background – he came from a family that belonged to a Slovenian minority in Carinthia – and his work with former Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky, who he said had a particular gift for bringing out the best in people and nurturing their talents.

Rupel: personal friend – learned much from Petritsch

Slovenia’s Foreign Minister, Dimitrij Rupel, also pursues the idea that Wolfgang Petritsch was strongly influenced by his experience as a member of the Slovenian minority in Carinthia. In his opinion, Petritsch developed a keen sense of belonging to a people and a state, and this made him the right man for the job in the Balkans. Wolfgang Petritsch was not only a personal friend from whom he learned a great deal, says Rupel; as an ethnic Slovenian, he was also one of the most prominent and beneficial forces in Austrian diplomacy.

Jakob Finci: Petritsch set Bosnia on a course for Europe

Jakob Finci, first president of the Jewish community in Bosnia in 1995 and now president of CEIS, also writes of Petritsch with great warmth. Petritsch was one of the very few true friends that Bosnia has, he says. He fought for the idea of an open society with considerable charisma and insistence and convinced the Bosnians to take the future of their country into their own hands. It is largely thanks to him that Bosnia was accepted into the Council of Europe in 2002 and is now in the process of EU rapprochement. Petritsch opened doors for Bosnia and nudged it in the right direction.

Several other writers also stress that Wolfgang Petritsch helped stabilize Bosnia by being the first to seek clarification on questions of ownership as the basis for a new legal system.


Part 2