Dodik and Trisic Babic: No EU laws until they suit us

Trisic Babic, who served as Dodik's adviser for years, became the interim president of RS based on a decision by the entity parliament after Dodik was stripped of his mandate when he was sentenced to one year in prison for failing to comply with decisions of the High Representative of the international community.

Speaking on Tuesday in an interview with Banja Luka's Alternativna televizija (ATV), which is close to the RS authorities, Trisic Babic confirmed for the first time that she is the candidate of Dodik's Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) for chief negotiator, after this had previously only been rumoured.

"My name came up because I was an assistant foreign minister and spent ten years as deputy minister," Trisic Babic said, adding that she ended up as interim president of RS by a twist of circumstances, though she actually has other ambitions.

She explained that an earlier general agreement within the ruling coalition at state level was that the chief negotiator should be a Serb, because the Chair of the Council of Ministers is a Croat, while the foreign minister is a Bosniak. In RS, they concluded it was logical that the negotiator come from the strongest political party in the entity, namely SNSD.

Three parties from the Bosniak-civic bloc within the ruling coalition strongly oppose Trisic Babic's appointment. Their position is that under no circumstances may this post go to SNSD, a party they consider anti-European and pro-Russian, and they believe Dodik would use his "puppets" to obstruct the negotiating process.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) now faces tight deadlines, as by 17 December it must adopt the laws on the courts and on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) and appoint the chief negotiator if it wants the European Council to approve the formal opening of accession talks.

That goal is hard to reach, as Dodik's two ministers in the Council of Ministers have twice blocked the agendas of sessions at which those laws were meant to be considered, and Trisic Babic has now confirmed that they are, in fact, opposed to the proposed legislation.

"They again tried to make RS renounce its constitution and its interests," said Dodik's associate.

This was confirmed almost simultaneously by Dodik himself, who stated that there would be no new laws until an internal agreement is reached. In a post on X, he used the opportunity to insult the head of the EU delegation in BiH, Luigi Soreca, who has been persistently calling for the laws to be adopted because there can be no progress on the European path without them.

He labelled Soreca "anti-Serb", claiming he advocates a unitary BiH, and called him a "a worthless mouthpiece for failed policies", while describing the European Union as an occupier.

"Had we wanted to endure their occupation, we would not have liberated ourselves so many times," Dodik concluded. Despite having been removed as head of SNSD, he continues to control all the key levers of power in RS.