Several groups of citizens, including intellectuals, academics and activists, called on Tuesday for the removal of Johann Sattler, the European Union's ambassador in Bosnia and Herzegovina, assessing his tenure as a “total failure to respond and insist on the respect of the principles that the European Union is based on.”

“His tenure will be remembered for almost constant political crises that have been consistently described as the worst and most unstable period since the end of the war, marked by successive blockades that prevent the country's political functioning, primarily – but not only – at the state level,” reads the statement.

The signatories of the statement also said they firmly believed that the actions taken by Sattler “have only contributed to social tensions in terms of nurturing and deepening the worn-out political mantra that relies on increasing and instrumentalising alleged ethnic divisions but is clearly aimed at enabling party manipulation of governing structures.”

“Ever he clumsily declared Dragan Covic (the leader of the major ethnic Croat party HDZ BiH) a ‘champion of European integration’, Mr Sattler has shown contempt for the society of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” they stressed.

According to them, Sattler ignored the most active and consistent advocates of true European values by instrumentalising the methods of the assembly of citizens for inadequate discussion about the intricacies of the Election Law “in order to achieve the previously set goal – achieving reform to electoral legislation tailored by Mr. Covic.”

The groups also accused the EU ambassador of having an approach of calming and enabling the “destructive actions of Dragan Covic and Milorad Dodik (the Bosnian Serb nationalist leader) in blocking the functioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina's institutions.”

“We believed that this approach would have to change, if for no other reason than because of the slow realisation that both Covic's and Dodik's actions alleviate the destabilising interests of the Russian Federation in the region, especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Unfortunately, we were wrong,” they said.

The signatories that among others include the informal group of citizens ‘Restart’, Association of Independent Intellectuals ‘Krug 99’ and its President Adil Kulenovic, professor David Pettigrew, activist Azra Zornic, entrepreneur and member of the Bosnian Civic Initiative Stuttgart's Board Elida Besic, activist Samir Beharic, have called for a turning point in the EU's policy towards Bosnia and Herzegovina.

They insist on “nothing less” than the actual implementation of European Court of Human Rights judgments, primarily in the Zornic case, the implementation of the recommendations of the Expert Report on the Rule of Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the path outlined in the 14 priorities of the European Commission's Opinion on BiH's fmembership application, “all bearing in mind the Stabilisation and Association Agreement and the European Convention for the Protection of Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.”

“However, if the EU considers that Mr. Sattler was effective in promoting EU reforms and values, that BiH is stronger today than when he came, and decides not to send a decent replacement for Mr. Sattler, then Brussels will have to understand that this approach ultimately turns out to be more expensive, as there will still be nothing to prevent the current attacks on European standards and values ​​in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region as a whole,” they warned, adding that the many will in that case have no other choice but to leave the country.