The Runaway World is the theme of the two-day 20th Bled Strategic Forum, which begins this Monday, and where regional and European leaders will focus on the crisis marked by geopolitical uncertainty and challenges to the international order, as well as the enlargement of the European Union. It will be an opportunity for Bosnia and Herzegovina – at a time when it is struggling to be part of the European family, and is facing internal blockades and attacks on its legal and constitutional heritage – to point out those for whom rule is a relative matter, and the collapse of the international order is an opportunity for new crises in which they profit politically while keeping the country in a Brussels vacuum.
From the enlargement of the European Union, digitalization, technological progress, security to Europe’s response to the uncertain geopolitical situation in which the international order is disrupted – these are the topics at the center of discussion at the forum, which will bring together leaders of numerous countries and high-ranking officials, and where Bosnia and Herzegovina will also have a role on the enlargement panel.
“We are still between two extremes – on one side, the opportunity offered to us by the European Union, and on that path, we need to adopt two more laws and elect a chief negotiator, and on the other side, the greatest security threat since Dayton to this day – Milorad Dodik, former President of the RS. We will use the opportunity to objectively present the situation in our country and ask for further support from our international partners, in order to stop what Dodik is doing, which is bad,” says Elmedin Konaković, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Divided by territories, trapped in political desires and blockades. Without money for 2025, with a reform that is a matter of political positioning and without unblocking the ruling SNSD, whose leader illegally acts as the president of the entity, blocking the EU path and turning to autocrats. This is the framework in which Bosnia and Herzegovina seeks entry, but does not deliver reforms, where it is crucial, despite the blockades, to show determination for political breakthroughs.
“We can only offer a continuation of the systemic commitment to fulfilling the conditions of the European Union. That is all they are interested in. To reach a stage and a standard that allows us to enter membership. When we act petty, we are not actually deceiving the European Union, but deceiving ourselves and driving qualified young people away from here, which will also be discussed in Bled,” says Lejla Mesihović, professor of international relations at Burch University.
“We cannot even agree on the Growth Plan. I do not know what project it is. I have not seen that there is a common project – something that will be adopted at all levels, that the state will stand behind it in all its parts. There was talk about the Sarajevo-Belgrade highway, that it will go this way, that way, so what?” says economic expert Svetlana Cenić.
Bilateral meetings, panels and discussions that define policies and influence decisions made by governments are a place to position Bosnia and Herzegovina in the integration process at a time of attempts at internal destabilization and blockade of the country so that Bosnia and Herzegovina can be part of the Bled Pledge on enlargement by 2030, in addition to pointing out the destructive moves of the RS authorities, which are also a security threat.
“If you remember the statement of Marta Kos, Commissioner for Enlargement, from a few months ago that the official position of Brussels is that Milorad Dodik, a Russian spy in the heart of Europe, is not welcome. That was very important in order to open up space for possible solutions. They exist if it were to happen that pro-European forces, those who mean well for all of Bosnia and Herzegovina and all its citizens, who want to improve the environment for economic development and to keep young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, use this space to form a new government, either now by changing the Minister of Security at the state level or in 2026,” Konaković points out.
Because with the SNSD remaining in power, Bosnia and Herzegovina is between the blockade and European ambitions, and as a collateral of pro-Russian politics and on the margins of the Western Balkans. It is held there by those who are destroying the rule of law, positioning the country on the bench of the European lobby. In that waiting room, the BiH government no longer foresees new deadlines for progress in the enlargement process, which for the leaders of the European Union is not only a bureaucratic, but also a security and geopolitical necessity, which Bosnia and Herzegovina should take advantage of.
