The project of building a new gas pipeline from Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), which, according to announcements, would be financed by the Russian “Gazprom”, is the first major test of state power in freeing itself from Russian influence and its attitude towards politics and future membership in the European Union (EU), whose countries have significantly reduced or completely suspended business with this Kremlin-controlled gas company.
At the session of the Council of Ministers this week, separate proposals for two completely new gas pipelines in BiH should be presented – one which, according to experts’ estimations, would significantly increase dependence on Russian gas and the other which could reduce or completely release that dependence, as European countries have done. But in the past few weeks, politicians in the ruling coalition at the state level have made conflicting statements about what they expect to happen. While SNSD’s position on another connection to Russian gas is well known, setting up a new connection in the south will be the first real big test for the parties from the Federation of BiH (FBiH) in relation to rapprochement with the EU’s foreign policy and reducing dependence on Russian gas.
Russian influence and the blockade of the Council of Ministers
Although some kind of idea about a special gas branch from Serbia to the Republika Srpska (RS) has existed for at least ten years, the president of RS Milorad Dodik, at the height of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the summer of 2022, after meeting with the president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and the leadership of “Gazprom” in Saint Petersburg, threatened to block projects in the FBiH if the construction of the gas pipeline from Serbia is not approved by the Council of Ministers.
Since then, he has repeated his blackmail on several occasions, once making the very existence of state power conditional. Similar messages were also sent by SNSD cadres such as Stasa Kosarac, State Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations. The last time the threat to block the state was sent after the recent postponement of the session of the new convocation of the Council of Ministers, where there was a special item on the agenda called “New Eastern Interconnection”.
BiH needs new gas connections because it currently has only one source of gas from Russia, which leaves citizens and companies dependent exclusively on gas from this country, while other countries in Europe are reducing their dependence due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. New sources could also lower gas prices.
According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH, Elmedin Konakovic, the previous session of the Council of Ministers was postponed because the ministers from RS withdrew from an earlier agreement that included the parallel approval of the “Southern Interconnection”, gas connection in the south of BiH, which, unlike the current one near Zvornik and the announced new ones near Bijeljina, would mean alternative sources of gas that do not include Russia.
The first real test of policy toward the EU
Dodik said at press conferences that “New Eastern Interconnection” and “Southern Interconnection” are “not in the package”.
“Now they’re inventing that the southern and eastern connections go in a package. What kind of package? The southern and eastern connections have nothing to do with each other. The investment holders are not the same, nothing is the same. We expect it to be completed without any conditions,” said Dodik.
At the earlier sessions of the Council of Ministers, the two connections were put into one common item for voting. On the agenda of the last session, the two projects were separated into separate items.
The former director of “BH Gas” Almir Becarevic believes that the staff of the SNSD has actually been blocking the contract between Croatia and BiH on the “Southern Interconnection” for years.
It was the “New Eastern Interconnection” project, claims Becarevic, that was the reason that the “Southern Interconnection” finally appeared on the agenda, but only together with the “Gazprom” project.
The new overturning of the decisions will mean that BiH remains completely dependent exclusively on Russian gas. But the adoption of only the decision on the new connection at Bijeljina could mean even greater dependence, because BiH would have two connections, but the gas could still come from only one, Russian source. For this reason, experts believe that ministers from the FBiH should not miss the chance to secure votes for the southern connection, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
