”The West is not determined enough to confront Milorad Dodik, forcing him to reconsider his policy, ”according to Kurt Bassuener of the Berlin-based Council for Democratization Policy.
“If an agreement is to be reached in favor of Bosnian Croat leader Dragan Covic, Dodik’s ally, and at the same time make it more acceptable to a Bosnian Serb leader with a compromise on state property and genocide denial law – then sanctions do not indicate the West is not ready to negotiate and make concessions to him, ” Bassuener pointed out.
He emphasized that as long as sanctions are intended to show that the West is doing something, without effectively influencing the situation in the field, it can be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
In his opinion, the Western policy is of a tactical nature and is aimed at pacifying the situation, he told Radio Free Europe (RFE).
Further, he mentioned that if the Western partners in the Balkans are politicians who violate the rule of law, if the most autocratic leader in the region (Vucic) is perceived as a pillar of stability, then that shows that something is quite wrong in Western politics.
He believes that if there is no determination in dealing with the “godfathers” of corruption in the Balkans, pressuring them to feel the consequences – then these sanctions are just PR and an attempt to manage the problem, not to solve it.
According to him, for sanctions to have an effect, except for the United States (U.S.), they should be imposed by all Western countries, and that means the inclusion of the European Union(EU). However, although the European bloc has a mechanism for abolishing visas and freezing funds, there is still no critical mass among member states to implement the instrument.
E.Dz.
Source: Klix.ba
