The member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Milorad Dodik, refused to give his approval for the new ambassador of Germany in BiH, and Berlin in turn threatened to retaliate against our country, even blocking it from obtaining candidate status for the European Union (EU).
Dodik made particularly offensive remarks against Germany at a press conference in April this year. At that time, Dodik drew parallels between Nazi Germany and today’s German state and said that Germany’s allocation of money for the army set off alarms among Serbs in these areas.
He then directed insults at the member of the German Bundestag, Adis Ahmetovic, whom he said reminded him of “those Jugends”, probably referring to the members of the “Hitlerjugend” organization (eng. Hitler Youth) in World War II.
Dodik often insulted the High Representative on the basis of his German origin. Thus, in reaction to the High Representative’s announcement that he could use the Bonn powers in education, he wrote: “The last time the Germans wrote history in the Balkans, which directly affected the Serbs, over a million Serbs died.”
Dodik also opposed the arrival of German soldiers in BiH as part of the EUFOR Althea mission and said that not only because of the historical but also the current approach, Germany cannot have the trust of the Serbs and Republika Srpska (RS), and accused the Bundestag of interfering in the internal affairs of BiH.
Despite numerous announcements that Germany could follow the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (U.S.) in imposing sanctions on Milorad Dodik for his anti-constitutional behavior and blocking any progress in BiH, this did not happen.
The strongest measure that Germany took was the suspension of four projects in RS worth 105 million euros. In this situation, due to the actions of Milorad Dodik and the National Assembly of the RS (NARS), Germany directly punished the entity.
Namely, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany did not support the implementation of the renovation project of the Armed Forces of BiH (AFBiH) barracks in Doboj due to the rhetoric of politicians from RS. With this decision, Germany effectively sanctioned the AFBiH, which is a single army at the state level, due to the actions of politicians from the RS.
The question arises whether the latest threats, that because the new German ambassador did not get an agreement due to Dodik’s blockade, the consequences will be suffered by the whole country, or whether the German diplomatic corps will clearly indicate a person who has been humiliating them for years and introduce direct measures against Milorad Dodik.
Germany, as a member country of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) and a country whose former minister is the current High Representative in BiH, should be well aware of who is blocking and who is the only one to blame for the humiliation it experienced by Dodik’s refusal to grant an agreement for its ambassador, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
