Faced with Western pressure, the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Milorad Dodik, seemed on Tuesday to ease up on his threats to withdraw from the shared institutions of the divided country, choosing a lengthy procedure for the adoption of a controversial separatist plan on justice.
Mr. Dodik has multiplied separatist rhetoric in recent months, giving the impression of wanting the Republika Srpska (RS) to leave the central institutions of the Balkan country as soon as possible. These declarations have earned him American sanctions and even pressure from Belgrade, his ally, and he now seems to want to postpone the implementation of his threats.
On December 10, the RS Parliament gave the government of this Bosnian Serb entity six months to legally organize the departure of three crucial institutions common to the central state: the army, justice and taxes. .
Bosnia is divided into two entities, one Serb and the other Croat-Bosnian, united by initially weak central institutions but which were strengthened after the war of the 1990s under Western pressure.
A few days before learning that he was sanctioned by Washington, Mr. Dodik had announced that the Serbian entity would leave the central judicial institution before the end of January. “Nobody will stop us”, had launched the one who is also one of the three co-presidents of Bosnia, a country which he describes as “impossible”.
The process of withdrawing from central justice was formally started on Tuesday before the Parliament of the RS with the examination of a bill on the establishment of a High Judicial Council allowing the appointment of judges and prosecutors in the entity Serbian.
Milorad Dodik could have had the text adopted quickly according to a so-called “urgent” procedure which avoids any debate, but the deputies will examine it on a “regular” basis, which means that a vote could take place in several months. Once adopted, the text also provides for a period of one year for the effective establishment of the new High Judicial Council.
The opposition in the RS, hostile to Mr. Dodik’s separatist projects, accuses him of endangering peace and of having electoral aims before the general elections in October.
“I have always said and I reaffirm that it will never come into force […] You are adopting something that is false and you are humiliating this Assembly,” denounced MP Jelena Trivic, a leading figure in the opposition, at the opening of the debates.
The US Treasury accuses Milorad Dodik, a former favorite of Westerners who has become pro-Russian, of having “undermined” central institutions by “initiating the creation of parallel institutions”.
According to Christian Schmidt, the International High Representative in Bosnia, the latter is exposed to its “greatest existential threat” since the Dayton agreement which established a fragile peace in 1995 after the inter-community war which left 100,000 dead.