Bosnian lawmaker files motion, demands that funding for Republika Srpska lobbying abroad stops

Zvizdic said that an insight into the budget spending Republika Srpska, Bosnia's Serb-majority entity, shows that in 2025 alone, that entity allocated 42.5 million marks (cca 21 million euro) of public money for this purpose, and that spending continued in 2026.

"In this regard, there is a significant number of lobbying contracts published in the FARA register (US Foreign Agents Registration Act) concluded by the entity of Republika Srpska, which clearly show that budget money, in the financing of which all natural and legal persons in the entity of RS and in the entire state of Bosnia and Herzegovina participate, is being spent on illegal and unconstitutional lobbying against the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina," Zvizdic posted on social networks.

The most obvious example, he added, is the Agreement on Consulting Services (Lobbying) concluded on September 6, 2025, between the Head of the RS Representative Office in Austria, Mladen Filipovic, and the President of the legal entity Dickens and Madson Canada Inc, Ari Ben Menashe.

This Agreement, concluded for a period of two years, lists as lobbying goals (paid for by all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina) "the independence of Republika Srpska from Bosnia and Herzegovina", "reviewing the decisions of the High Representative", "annulment of legal early elections for the President of RS", "removal of sanctions for the organizers of the unconstitutional RS Day", etc.

"Therefore, the goal of my motion is not to ban lobbying for the purpose of economic development, which is a legal and permitted activity in most countries of the world. The goal is for the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to ban all budget payments by all levels of government in Bosnia and Herzegovina for lobbying for unconstitutional and illegal goals that are contrary to the Constitution of BiH, the laws of BiH, decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH and the institutions of BiH," he said.

He expressed hope that the Constitutional Court would recognize such activity as prohibited, thereby permanently resolving this issue "in the only correct way - which is to ban all budget transfers related to such activities," emphasized Zvizdic.

He requested a temporary measure from the Constitutional Court of BiH to temporarily suspend the implementation of the disputed budget item from the RS Entity Budget for 2026, until the Constitutional Court of BiH makes a final decision, "because we have a number of lobbying contracts that were concluded during 2026, and there is a clear tendency that similar actions will continue in the future."