High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schmidt informed the United Nations Security Council that the Republika Srpska authorities are endangering peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Dayton Agreement with their actions, warning that this is a threat to the stability of the entire region.
High representatives of the international community for Bosnia and Herzegovina are obliged to report to the UN Security Council every six months on the situation in that country, and this is the 67th such document sent to the United Nations headquarters, the eighth in Schmidt’s mandate.
This report should be an item on the agenda at the UN Security Council session announced for May 6. Along with Schmidt, Željka Cvijanović, the Chairperson of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a close associate of Milorad Dodik, is also planning to participate in its work, so it is expected that the two will present completely opposite assessments of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Cvijanović is under US sanctions and is prohibited from traveling to the US, but she managed to obtain a short-term visa to come to UN headquarters, which the US authorities sometimes issue to politicians from problematic countries such as Iran and Russia.
On Friday, the media in BiH reported parts of Schmidt’s report, which stated that after Dodik was sentenced to a year in prison for disobeying the High Representative’s decisions, the RS authorities intensified their attack on the constitutional order of BiH by passing laws that attempt to prevent the operation of state-level judicial bodies and police agencies in that entity.
“The adoption of laws in the RS National Assembly that prohibit the work of state-level judicial institutions and law enforcement bodies on the territory of RS heralds de facto secession,” the report states.
Schmidt also sees Dodik’s attempt to have RS pass a new constitution that would give the entity powers that currently belong to the state as particularly dangerous.
He warned of the blockade of the BiH government due to blackmail imposed by Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), and stressed that the influence of that party makes it difficult to carry out the reconstruction of the BiH Council of Ministers.
Commenting on the position of HDZ BiH, Schmidt reminded that the largest Croatian party still insists on changes to the electoral law as the most important issue that should be resolved, but he assessed that the implementation of other reforms is also necessary in order for BiH to emerge from the current political crisis.
