The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Elmedin Konaković, said at the annual press conference in Sarajevo that during the year 2025, he met with more than 60 high-ranking officials, at the highest level, with whom they discussed, analyzed, planned and agreed. He added that these were not meetings in which they just shook hands and passed, but were meetings where they had more serious discussions about Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“No one will ever talk about us again without us. BiH is no longer talked about anywhere without us, but whenever they have something to say about us, we are here to tell the real truth about BiH. I think that the results of such actions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but also of the member of the BiH Presidency, Denis Bećirović, can already be seen in the international field,” said Konaković.
Renewed and strengthened friendships
He added that, “when those who don’t like BiH so much do some negative campaigns, we often invite some of our friends for support, who will explain what is really happening in this country”.
“Today, three years into my mandate, it looks much easier than at the beginning. We renewed and strengthened those friendships, and they mean a lot today in this kind of international order. Advocacy or lobbying of a strong world country is very important and I think that today we finally have these tools in our hands,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Konaković recalled that they participated in more than 20 multilateral events, including meetings of friends of the Western Balkans, the Munich Security Conference, the Antalya Diplomatic Forum, an informal meeting of foreign ministers of EU member states and candidate countries, the OSCE session, the United Nations General Assembly…
He reminded that since the beginning of the mandate, more than 50 visits of high-ranking officials have been made to BiH, of which 20 were during the last year. He mentioned only some of them – the foreign ministers of Austria, Finland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and some other countries.
He stated that since the beginning of the mandate, 183 acts have been adopted, of which in the last year 50 acts aimed at improving the functioning of the diplomatic-consular network, improving the status of staff at the headquarters of the ministry and DKPs, harmonizing the visa regime with the needs of the tourism sector, as well as fulfilling obligations from the European integration process.
European integration
Speaking about European integration, he stated that in the two most recent annual reports, the European Commission positively assessed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the areas that are under their jurisdiction.
“This is the alignment, first of all, of our foreign and security policy with the European Union, and we are still 100 percent aligned with the European Union. This is an important obligation from the Stabilization and Association Agreement and is highly valued when a decision is made on further steps related to accession to the European Union. Within the framework of the last two summits of the Berlin Process, we personally initiated and proposed two joint declarations that were adopted at the meetings of foreign ministers – a joint declaration on the re-affirmation of good neighborly relations and regional cooperation as the first initiative of this type coming from the Western Balkan six; and the joint declaration on the role of women in diplomacy and the establishment of a network of female diplomats of the Western Balkans,” reminded Konaković.
A joint commission was also established to monitor and implement the Agreement between the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Government of the Republic of Croatia on European Partnership.
“The House of Representatives of the Parliament adopted the decision on the formation of the office and the procedure for appointing the chief negotiator and deputy chief negotiator. I hope for the adoption of these two historic laws in both houses of the BiH Parliament, and then, of course, the essential issue of the selection of negotiators, which the House of Representatives has already resolved. We are waiting for the positions of the Constitutional Court and the positions of the European Union, whether this is a possible model that we prefer. It is also preferred by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Politics of the Troika,” said Konaković.
He said that the key laws adopted during 2025 are important for the process of European integration, including the Law on Border Control, the Law on Protection of Personal Data, as well as a number of strategic documents.
Also, the Council of Ministers adopted draft laws harmonized with EU standards in the field of intellectual property, as well as the rulebook on the implementation of the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorist Activities.
The biggest brakeman of the ‘Russian submarine’ SNSD
“However, the possibilities were much greater. There are many more opportunities on the table, the Council of Ministers did not take advantage of it and we did not make these key, essential steps in the part that concerns these two remaining laws, the harmonization of these two laws with European standards,” said Konaković.
He added that the biggest brake on that path is still “the Russian submarine SNSD and of course the HDZ, which stands firmly in arms with the SNSD, preferring the Čović-Dodik relationship rather than the European path”.
“It is not bad that we have a diagnosis, we will soon offer some medicines for this phenomenon,” said Konaković.
He reminded that Dodik’s plan or Dodik’s priorities were “first – secession, that Dodik’s priority in the internal organization was the abolition of foreign judges in the Constitutional Court; the abolition of the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court; that his priority was the prohibition of the work of the Prosecutor’s Office, SIPA and other state agencies on the territory of the RS; that his priority was the taking over the borders of the State of BiH to the entity level; that his priority was the seat of the Court of BiH in Banja Luka and that a number of his priorities, as he listed them, were actually much higher goals than the lifting of sanctions”.
“And in order for his sanctions to be lifted, he had to cancel all his priorities in the National Assembly of the RS, go back a few steps. We know that he essentially still lives those goals and that his narrative is still like that. His priority was the complete control of Russia in the energy sector of the Balkans and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and today you are watching the announcement of the control of our most important partner, the United States of America, and the withdrawal of Russia from this space in energy. So, it’s not that he didn’t achieve his goals, but he didn’t achieve any important ones, and he only got the personal satisfaction of spending money that he probably illegally acquired and thus exposed himself to the public in RS. That’s why people today trust other politicians more and more, and him less and less. I can say that it was the most important thing for 2025,” assessed Konaković.
