A large number of open issues between Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Croatia were not even discussed at the joint session of the Council of Ministers and the Croatian government. Memoranda and agreements remained in the shadow of Trgovska Gora, about which there is still no agreement.
The citizens of BiH and Croatia have been waiting for years for a breakthrough and a new era in the relations between the two countries, say analysts after the joint session of the Council of Ministers of BiH and the Government of the Republic of Croatia. For this, they claim, a dialogue is needed, the contours of which have been seen recently, but without concrete results. A joint session should have been a positive impetus for these new relations, but this third one in a row remained only on promises and a few signed memoranda.
“State relations, as they have been lately, are really at a critically low level. And we expect that these relations will finally move in a better direction, opening the horizons of the future, which will have more existential and life meaning for the citizens of one and the other country”, says sociologist and philosopher Esad Bajtal, adding that politicians, unlike citizens, are more than fine.
(Dis)agreements
Maybe that’s exactly why the burning issues won’t be on the agenda yet, at least not for serious discussion. All open issues, the completion of infrastructure projects such as the bridge on the Sava River, borders, and the problem of waste disposal on Trgovska Gora, were put aside even though they were declaratively on the agenda.
20 years of silence
However, the reality is that nothing is being done in practice and that BiH is late with all the steps it could have taken to prevent Croatia from disposing of radioactive waste from the Krsko nuclear power plant, as early as next year. After the news in which it was revealed that 24 years ago the Croatian Parliament adopted a decision according to which the former Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) barracks were designated as a waste disposal site, the Council of Ministers and the Government of Republika Srpska (RS) wanted to justify themselves for missing all the deadlines. To date, nothing has been done, and Croatia is about to issue a permit for the start of disposal.
“I didn’t accept their conclusions, they didn’t accept the conclusions coming from the Council of Ministers, which were established at the session of the Council of Ministers, so there is obviously no willingness on the Croatian side to talk reasonedly and try to find the best solution on this issue. And that is for Croatia to find another location”, said the Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations in the BiH Council of Ministers, Stasa Kosarac, who the day before the session, together with the Minister of Security, Nenad Nesic, conditioned its holding if the Trgovska Gora issue was not put on the agenda
“Cowardly performance”
“At the session, they discussed the topic of building a center for the disposal of radioactive waste at the Cerkezovac location on Trgovska Gora and the impact of the “Upper Horizons” project on the Neretva river basin in the spirit of good friendly relations between the two countries,” the Council of Ministers announced after the session. Mario Crnkovic from the non-governmental organization Green Team from Novi Grad, which is only a kilometer away from the Cerkezovac barracks, says that BiH’s behavior is outrageous.
“Last week, we submitted a new complaint to the Ombudsman for Human Rights, due to the inaction all this year by the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees. It is cowardly to run away from the Trgovska Gora case. It is not normal to behave like this. Accepting this story is literally a subtle green light for Croatia by the state. It is cowardly to go to Zagreb and be part of some kind of performance while squinting at the nuclear facility in the border zone,” Crnkovic emphasizes.
The improvement of relations between the two countries may be initiated through some other infrastructure projects, as was the case with the Peljesac Bridge when the National Assembly of the RS (NARS) overrode the veto of the BiH Presidency on the construction ban and practically enabled the completion of this project. Now the completion of the issue of the bridge on the Sava near Gradiska is expected, for the commissioning of which more work is needed, due to the access roads from the Croatian side.
“Unfortunately, it turned out that symbolic issues are important. That the agreement to build a bridge on the Sava and to connect the highway from Banja Luka to the Croatian network is not important, because it is relatively easy,” said analyst from Zagreb Zarko Puhovski, DW reports.
E.Dz.
