Bosnia’s leading Croat party is openly working for the interests of Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and Russia by advocating for “abandoning the Membership Action Plan (MAP),” the left-leaning Democratic Front (DF) party said in a Friday statement.
The MAP is an essential step towards Bosnia’s NATO membership – a highly divisive issue among the country’s political leaders in the ethnic power-sharing system.
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Although Bosnian Serbs dislike NATO since the alliance’s bombing of their artillery positions during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war and its airstrikes on Serbia during the 1999 Kosovo conflict, Bosnian Serb politicians were willing to have Bosnia join the Alliance and agreed to submit an official request for membership.
However, they changed their minds in the past few years and now insist Bosnia should do what neighbouring Serbia does. Serbia has declared military neutrality.
Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats have been pushing for Bosnia’s NATO membership.
The quarrel over the issue is also the main obstacle to the formation of the government – in Bosnia officially called the Council of Ministers – following the October 2018 election.
The proposed candidate for the prime minister comes from the ruling Serb Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) which is strongly opposed to NATO membership and the Bosniak and Croat presidency members refuse to greenlight him, arguing that he would breach the law if he would not implement previous decisions.
The current Chairman of the Presidency is SNSD leader Milorad Dodik, while the Croat Presidency member is DF’s Zeljko Komsic who had beaten the candidate of the Bosnian Croat nationalist party at past election.
To protect nationalist interests the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ) formed an alliance with Dodik’s party.
The DF mentioned recent statements made by HDZ’s Nikola Lovrenovic, who said that the only way to establish the government is for the ‘Bosnian bloc’ to retract their condition regarding the MAP and for it to be resolved after Bosnia’s Council of Ministers is established.
“It has finally become clear that the leader of the HDZ and former Presidency member Dragan Covic has for years and during his mandate been deceiving the public regarding his commitment to the activation of the MAP, which did not happen during his mandate, despite numerous promises,” the party said.
Such a stance by the Croat party emerged after Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and Covic “submitted their report to the Russian Ambassador” in the country, the DF claimed.
The party stressed that it, as well as its leader who is currently the Bosnian Croat Presidency member, Zeljko Komsic, “will never give up on the MAP for the sake of interests of Milorad Dodik.”
With its open advocacy for “abandoning the MAP” the HDZ is not only advocating for the “betrayal of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also for the betrayal of the Croat people,” the DF said.
“That (the MAP) will surely not be achieved with open servitude to Milorad Dodik and advocacy for his positions,” it said.
