The High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)Christian Schmidt was heard yesterday in the Palace of Westminster in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United Kingom (UK), where he spoke about the political situation in BiH.
The meeting of the Committee was opened by the chairman Alicia Kearns, who at the beginning asked the high representative to briefly describe the current situation in BiH.
“I am glad that things are moving. There is a dynamic that we did not have last year because we had a blockade from the Republika Srpska (RS), especially Milorad Dodik, then a member of the BiH Presidency. They returned to the institutions. Elections were held. I am not sure that the Central Election Commission (CEC) could detect all problems. Coalitions are being established, a new Council of Ministers was formed last week. It consists of the Eight, HDZ and SNSD,” said Schmidt.
He emphasized that the biggest problem is the current formation of the government in FBiH.
“It is challenging to form the government at the Federation of BiH (FBiH) level, but the budget was recently adopted. As for the candidate status for the European Union (EU), I don’t think this is an issue for discussion in the UK, but I must say that BiH was granted candidate status in December. This is not the beginning of negotiations and there is still much to be done before that. We hope that this will bring some change in the commitment towards European integration,” said the high representative.
Also, during the conversation with the members of the Committee, Schmidt once again repeated that he had unblocked the processes in the FBiH, but that it was not up to him to form the government.
“It is not up to me to form the government. We have a situation where the Eight have a majority in the House of Representatives, and in the House of Peoples of the FBiH, SDA manages the Bosniak Caucus with certain coalition partners,” Schmidt points out.
During the hearing, Schmidt referred to the adoption of Bonn powers directly against political individuals in BiH.
“Sometimes I would like to be like Paddy Ashdown. He did it in a different environment. It included a strong presence of the Stabilisation Force in BiH (SFOR), and international police structures. I wouldn’t rule it out, but I haven’t done it yet. We have to think about the financial and economic conditions of the sanctions. RS is not the richest part of the country and it needs money,” said the high representative.
In the end, Schmidt also spoke about state property and said that he had no agreement with Dodik about it.
“All those stories about me reaching a secret agreement with Dodik are nonsense. I have to make decisions about state property. I blocked earlier decisions of the National Assembly of RS (NARS) which were related to it. Unfortunately, Dodik is playing a game in which he points out that state property is a matter of the existence of the RS. That’s also nonsense,” he explained, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
