According to Reuf Bajrovic, who co-chairs the US-Europe Alliance, the lobbying efforts of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity in Washington are paying off and the international community is playing both sides in the BiH.
Bajrovic spoke to N1 about the situation in light of the ongoing major political crisis in Bosnia over an initiative by BiH Presidency member and leader of the ruling party in the Serb-majority RS entity, Milorad Dodik, to roll back reforms which led to the post-war establishment of numerous state institutions, including the army, indirect taxation authority and judicial institutions.
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Dodik announced that the RS will unilaterally withdraw from those institutions and form its own, separate ones.
Bajrovic said that Washington, unfortunately, does not understand the gravity of the situation and that he feels like “the people who make decisions in Washington see what is happening in BiH and the region as a kind of story with no specific reason for action.”
“I think that the amount of money that Dodik and SNSD (Alliance of Independent Social Democrats) spend on lobbying, unfortunately, produces results. Add to this what the Government of Serbia is doing in lobbying and various initiatives, such as the Open Balkans initiative, which is loved by the American administration, and which, in my opinion, is of no use,” he said.
Bajrovic argued that the international community is playing both sides in Bosnia, with parts of it, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Slovenia’s Janez Jansa, Croatia’s Zoran Milanovic, Cyprus and “various right-wing parties in the European Parliament” supporting Dodik in his efforts.
“There are also those who do it secretly, like some European Union officials. What they are saying in the EU and the situation on the ground are completely different things,” he said, arguing that the EU Special Representative in Bosnia, Johann Sattler, “looks like the ambassador of the HDZ BiH (Croat Democratic Union), not the EU.”
He also argued that pro-Bosnian forces are not lobbying sufficiently.
“Today in Washington, traditional diplomacy is secondary, politics is conducted more through NGOs, business associations, private companies that are close to the state, and so on,” he said.
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