Various political options use lobbying houses around the world to pursue their interests in Bosnia and Herzegovina. From calls for the abolition of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and its decisions, to demands for a third electoral constituency and the revision of the Dayton Peace Agreement, different political agendas are being promoted abroad. The question increasingly arises: is anyone lobbying for the interests of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state?
American Republicans and European right-wing political circles have increasingly been discussing Bosnia and Herzegovina, while positions on the role of the OHR, electoral constituencies and the country’s constitutional structure are promoted through influential conservative organizations.
According to Irvin Pekmez, a journalist with Detektor.ba, the backgrounds and connections of some of the actors involved provide an important context for understanding their activities.
“If we look at who these people are and if we see that these people had a certain history of relations with the authorities in Moscow, for example, a certain history of relations with the German right-wing and Nazi AfD, which had relations with the French party led by the right-wing woman Le Pen, it is very clear to see what the actual nature of their conversation is.”
Journalists from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network say these activities are, among other things, the result of lobbying by different political currents from Bosnia and Herzegovina abroad.
The Heritage Foundation is one of the organizations that has been active in discussions concerning Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is also reflected in data from the meeting database of European Union officials.
Pekmez says the positions promoted by Heritage representatives, including Max Primorac, who participated in one of the meetings, are particularly significant.
“What Heritage stands for, that is, what their representatives, such as Max Primorac, who is also a participant in one of the meetings, is representing is a return to tradition, Christian Europe and blaming the Muslim community in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the oppression of Christians, which is the thesis of Max Primorac, who again met with the well-known Željana Zovko.”
At the same time, Bosnia and Herzegovina still does not have a comprehensive legal framework regulating lobbying.
According to Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina, lobbying is most often used by political interest groups. The organization has also pointed to significant amounts being spent by the authorities in Republika Srpska on lobbying activities abroad.
Damjan Žegović of Transparency International BiH says the complex structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina makes the situation particularly vulnerable to competing political interests.
“Precisely because of the structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as it is, there are several levels of government that try, and which are again controlled by different political subjects with different intentions and determinations, who try to push their interests, while it is not necessarily done for the public interest.”
The absence of coordinated lobbying for the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina is also a concern for journalist Dragan Bursać, who argues that having experts and influential individuals abroad is not enough without organized and professional lobbying.
“We have great experts, we have great people abroad, but that means little to you if you don’t have lobbying houses behind you, if you don’t pay lobbying houses, if you don’t pay the media, people close to the media, above all in the West, above all the people of the center and the right-wing media, that’s the situation whether someone likes it or not. It is important that you work proactively for Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are, in fact, reactive and do not act.”
The debate over international lobbying comes at a time when different political actors from Bosnia and Herzegovina are seeking support abroad for competing visions of the country’s future.
While some advocate changes to the constitutional and electoral system, others seek to weaken or remove the authority of the OHR and revise elements of the Dayton framework. Meanwhile, there appears to be no unified mechanism through which Bosnia and Herzegovina could systematically present and defend its broader state interests abroad.
The European Union has previously warned that Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to establish clear principles and rules governing lobbying, so that politicians have transparent guidelines on how they may cooperate with lobbyists and other actors seeking to influence legislative and political processes.
Until such rules are established, lobbying will remain an arena in which political groups with greater resources, stronger international networks and better-organized structures can promote their interests—raising a fundamental question for Bosnia and Herzegovina: who is advocating for the interests of the country as a whole?
