The Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Belgrade announced that as of today, October 2, in its consular department, it is not possible to submit requests for issuing visas to foreign citizens, issuing travel documents to citizens of BiH, or requests for approval of temporary residence for foreign citizens, stating that the interruption of these services occurred after the Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH Elmedin Konaković invited part of the Embassy’s employees to Sarajevo for consultations.
The Embassy claims that Konaković thereby made it impossible to carry out work prescribed by law in the domain of consular services, and they state that, as he publicly announced earlier, he invited employees of Serbian nationality to consultations at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sarajevo.
In a press release from the Embassy, such a move was assessed as politically motivated, illegal and discriminatory, with the claim that the consultations to which the employees were invited were not provided for by legal and by-laws.
The embassy also made an assessment that, as they state, “for the first time since the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a high-ranking Bosniak official of the joint institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina carried out the segregation of civil servants on the basis of nationality”, claiming that the employees were invited as a group and that they were labeled, disturbed and that their human dignity was violated.
According to the statement, among the employees who were invited to Sarajevo is the first secretary of the Embassy, who, they claim, is the only remaining civil servant in the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Belgrade with authorization to work on collecting biometric data in the consular department.
Due to his absence, according to the Embassy, it is not possible to collect biometric data from October 2, which is why we cannot receive requests for visas of foreign citizens, travel documents of BiH citizens, or requests from foreign citizens for approval of temporary residence.
The Embassy warns that the interruption of these consular services could have consequences for the implementation of infrastructure, energy and other economic projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“The largest number of requests for issuing visas received by the consular department of the BiH Embassy in Belgrade refers to foreign nationals engaged in the implementation of strategic projects that the Government of the Republika Srpska and the Government of the Federation of BiH declared projects of general interest in their decisions,” the Embassy states.
The embassy claims that the new situation threatens numerous infrastructure projects implemented by JP Highways of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Highways of the Republic of Srpska, as well as energy projects and other economic and business activities on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina that depend on the engagement of foreign employees who submit requests for visas or residence permits to the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Belgrade.
The Embassy said that the consular department will not be able to perform the aforementioned tasks until the return of the first secretary from the consultations in Sarajevo.
