High Representative Christian Schmidt spoke today in an interview for Face television about the political current affairs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, announcing that he will make a new decision regarding Milorad Dodik and believes that he has the strong support of the international community for this.
At the very beginning of the interview, the high representative said that “the time for statements has passed, now is the time to take action”.
“When we talk about illegally passed laws in the RS that have an impact on one of the highest institutions in the country, when we have such laws, then we must re-introduce and return to the capacities of the Constitutional Court,” said Schmidt, indicating that Milorad Dodik’s plan will not be successful.
He pointed out that it is pointless that Dodik, on the one hand, complains that the Constitutional Court is not multinational, and on the other hand, he does not want to send judges from the RS to that institution.
“I took things very seriously. My position exists so that I can protect the country and its citizens. Even after terrible times, we must ensure that we build a peaceful society, and what we have now is an attempt to destroy that society. This is a serious attack, but I can to say, be prepared, there will be a serious reaction,” announced Schmidt.
He went on to tell how he discussed with the international community about the use of Bonn powers because of Milorad Dodik.
“We in the international community have been talking about this for the past few days and I think there is a unified position. I think they will stand behind me and fully support the intention to ensure the work of the Constitutional Court of BiH… The international community takes all this seriously, sometimes we we were late before, but we won’t be anymore because now we have Europe at our door and the war in Ukraine,” he said.
Schmidt also added: “We are waiting to see that governments and assemblies adopt laws that are in line with European standards. In the next few weeks, we will have Brussels asking the question ‘What is happening?’. They want to inform EU members in the fall that there was progress. That’s why we are now extremely determined to make progress, that’s why we are thinking intensively about the situation we have today.”
He stressed that he was “going in the direction of making decisions”, stressing that it would be soon, but did not want to specify when.
“If you ask the football coach for the next game who he’s going to play, he’ll tell you I can’t tell you because I don’t know. I’m still thinking about it, I’m thinking about the final decisions I’ll make before the game itself… I think ( decision by Schmidt) to be at some expected time,” he said.
He said that he has always strived to keep calm waters in politics, but that now is the time to make strong decisions.
“I’ll sleep tonight, I’ll think a little more, I’ll wake up in the morning, I’ll also think and then see what my schedule is for the next few days,” Schmidt said when he was asked when he would make a decision about Milorad Dodik.
In addition to disrespecting the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is currently a topical issue, he also touched on state property, saying that the fact that Milorad Dodik has power in the RS does not mean that everything that exists there is his, Klix.ba reports.
