When it comes to yesterday’s visit of Viktor Orban to our country, he says that he is perhaps the only prime minister of aEuropean Union (EU) member, as well as a NATO member, who has very good private and professional relations with Milorad Dodik, who is not only the president of Republika Srpska (RS) entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), he is also the president of the SNSD, one of the most important parties of the current coalitions ruling BiH.
“In that sense, his visit will be interesting from the perspective of whether, as he claims, he wants to work on the stability of the region, whether he will then use his personal relationship with Dodik to improve the situation in BiH or will, as has often been the case so far, be used as an excuse, as a ‘poster’ for voters in the RS, as proof that both Dodik and the RS have friends, not only in the East, but also in the West,” Adnan Cerimagic, the analyst of the Initiative for European Stability, says.
He added that the relationship between Dodik and Orban is somewhat younger than that between Orban and Vucic.
“It began to develop in 2018 since the victory of Dodik in the elections for the Presidency of BiH. Before that, both Orban and his party Fidesz supported the opposition to Dodik through the European People’s Party, that is, it was the PDP. Orban is a very pragmatic politician and his views on the migrant crisis, to the place of Islam in Europe, these are some of the things that connected Dodik and Orban. However, his main partner in the region is Vucic,” explained Cerimagic.
He also stated that the EU is not known as an actor capable of playing the game on multiple fields. “The priority is Ukraine and Moldova. In our region, the priority is Kosovo and Serbia. BiHis somehow left aside. I think that everyone in the EU would be happy if BiH accepted this story with candidate status, to start fulfilling conditions for the opening of negotiations, however, with this situation with the Constitutional Court, but also with the relationship with the high representative, we see that this did not happen. And in this sense, I would say that the EU leaves the leading role in BiH to the United States (U.S.)“.
Also, he pointed out that for Western politicians and diplomats dealing with BiH, the opinions and positions of Zagreb and Belgrade are important, in the sense that, as he says, they sometimes see them as a source of problems.
E.Dz.
