Agreements between the countries of the region on mutual recognition of identity cards were signed in Berlin on November 3rd, but after the situation between Belgrade and Pristina became complicated, Milorad Dodik announced the blocking of these agreements. So today only in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) nothing has been ratified.
The Albanian Institute published a graph showing how far the ratification of the agreement has come, which must be completed 18 months after the signing in Berlin. Of the six participating countries, only BiH has not ratified anything in any state institution.
The Chairperson of the BiH Council of Ministers, Borjana Kristo, was asked two days ago after the session when the agreements would be ratified. She replied that she did not know, but added a very strange construction about the “current political moment” and “taking care that the agreements do not affect security”.
“We have a certain number of agreements in the procedure, you know that the procedure is complex, we put everything that comes up on the agenda. When it comes to this liberalization in the context of the current political moment, we certainly take care to sign the agreements and have them ratified, but taking care that they do not affect security, in terms of the movement of people,” said Kristo.
Milorad Dodik said similarly, only much more transparently, after the situation between Belgrade and Pristina “boiled up”. At that time, even before the formation of the state government, he said that he would not allow the residents of Kosovo to freely pass through Republika Srpska (RS) and there would be no ratification of such an agreement.
Given that we are the only ones who have not yet fulfilled this obligation to ratify the agreement, which, ironically, was signed by Zoran Tegeltija, SNSD’s chairman of the Council of Ministers at the time, despite pressure from the European Union (EU), it is obvious that this is a deliberate stall.
Dodik’s coalition partner at the state level and head of BiH diplomacy, Elmedin Konakovic, commented on this problem, saying that “the document is in the process”, but that it will be proposed again “as soon as there is political approval for it”.
He also states that he cannot understand why there is no political agreement on this because it is not disputed by any other country, including Serbia. However, it should be clearer to him considering that his coalition partner is causing the standoff, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
