German Bundestag member Josip Juratovic has said in an interview with the Croatian state agency Hina that he will keep trying to amend the Bundestag draft resolution on Bosnia and Herzegovina whereby the document should also cite Bosniak politician Bakir Izetbegovic as the one whose activities are detrimental to the country.

However, Juratovic, a long-standing SPD parliamentarian, is not optimistic about the outcome of his endeavours.

According to the interview which Hina published on Sunday, the draft resolution will likely be adopted unchanged.

Incomplete draft resolution, it needs amendments

The document will be endorsed by all parliamentarians of the ruling coalition as all that is written is justified, he said, underscoring that “it does not mean that the resolution is complete.”

The voting on the draft resolution is likely to be on the Bundestag's agenda in late June or in early July, according to him.

Commenting on the additional amendments, Juratovic said that they have been hammered out to a large extent by the SPD working group for the European affairs.

This paper will not be put for discussion and it will be signed by those parliamentarians who think that the draft resolution should be supplemented by those points (cited in the supporting paper), said Juratovic.

The MP said that it is about singling out the names of nationalist parties and their leaders and pointing out the need to combat corruption and crime.

Furthermore, some MPs also believe that the draft resolution failed to specify the positive forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Juratovic believes it is also important to single out Bakir Izetbegovic, the leader of the mainly Bosniak, centre-right Party of Democratic Action (SDA) as an ethno-nationalist politician, alongside Bosnian Serb and Croat leaders, Milorad Dodik and Dragan Covic.

“By his actions, Izetbegovic has contributed to the dysfunction of the (Croat-Bosniak entity) Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and he prefers the divisive rhetoric, as already confirmed by a statement released by the US embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said the SPD politician.

This resolution which failed to mention Bakir Izetbegovic is ideal for his election campaign, stressed Juratovic, explaining that Izetbegovic has targeted the campaign to the Bosniak expat communities and adding that “unbelievable pressure has been directed against me.”

Juratovic, a long-standing German unionist and a parliamentary deputy of the German Social Democrats (SPD), who was born in Croatia, told Hina that he was surprised by the ferocity of the reactions against his proposal for amending the draft resolution.

He said that during his political activities he had met with the pressures of nationalists from the Western Balkans, and what is now more important to him is that he receives the strong support from “moderate Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, who are not perhaps so vociferous but they are a majority.”

New dimensions of pressure

Juratovic also revealed that he was surprised by the fact that the draft resolution leaked in the public before it was fine-tuned in the Bundestag.

I have not experienced something like that when it comes to foreign affairs, that a draft goes public in strange circumstances before it has been discussed by the caucus of deputies, he said, adding that he could not say who was behind this leak.

He, however, explained that the campaign against him is being orchestrated by a network of Bosniak nationalists who have been working on the election campaign for the forthcoming elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He said that in this case the pressure is being exerted through social network, mudslinging and commissioned articles aimed at silencing an MP.

Ahmetovic, MP behind the resolution, is one of many rapporteurs in Bundestag

Commenting on the case of SPD MP Adis Ahmetovic, who is perceived as the driving force behind the resolution, Juratovic said that he had nothing personally against Ahmetovic, whom he let take his position in the committee for foreign policy.

Since I started my political career, 40 years ago, I have always had problems with all kinds of nationalists, including Bosniak nationalists, said Juratovic.

“If my colleague Ahmetovic ignores the nationalism among the Bosniaks, then I have also the problem with him,” he noted.

Commenting on the controversies about how to cite the role which Ahmetovic has in the German parliament and how he introduces himself, Juratovic explained that there was no such position as the Bundestag's special rapporteur for the Western Balkans.

“There is only the special rapporteur for the western Balkans of the German foreign ministry, and that is Manuel Sarrazin,” Juratovic explained. Since 2022, Sarrazin has been serving as Special Representative for the Countries of the Western Balkan in the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“Adis Ahmetovic is a new politician and many media outlets in the Western Balkans have wrongly introduced him as the Bundestag's rapporteur for the Western Balkans, and obviously Adis has not felt any need to correct those wrong presentations,” Juratović said explaining that Ahmetovic is the SPD rapporteur for the Western Balkan in the foreign policy committee.

It is not a small thing as the SPD is the strongest party, however, he is one of tens of rapporteurs which the Bundestag has for the Western Balkans in different committees and working groups, and for instance, I am also such rapporteur in the European affairs committee, he added.