Two controversial laws signed into law by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik on Friday came into force on Sunday despite protests from the United States, which accuses the laws of undermining the 1995 agreements that ended the war in the former Yugoslavia.
The first of them de facto rejects the authority of the International High Representative in this Bosnian Serb entity, where he has discretionary powers allowing him to annul or impose laws and to dismiss elected officials.
The second law suspends the recognition by the Bosnian Serb entity of the judgments of the Bosnian Constitutional Court, which nevertheless apply in theory throughout this country divided in two by community fault lines.
Under the terms of the Dayton agreements that ended the war in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995), Bosnia was split between a Serbian entity, the Republika Srpska, and a Croat-Muslim federation.
The two texts, approved last month by the deputies of the Republika Srpska, were published on Sunday in the official journal despite recriminations from the West, worried to see tensions worsening further in this Balkan country.
On Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter that the law rejecting the authority of the High Representative “violates the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and undermines the Dayton Accords”.
German politician Christian Schmidt, who has held the post of International High Representative in Bosnia since 2021, tried to thwart the implementation of these two texts by declaring them illegal in a decree issued last week.
But President Dodik did not take this into account, he who in a recent letter assured that the High Representative “did not exist”.
Last week, Christian Schmidt also adopted a new measure allowing the federal authorities of Bosnia to prosecute politicians who refuse to comply with its decrees and the decisions of the Constitutional Court, with sentences of up to five years in prison. .
President Dodik refuses in particular to recognize the authority of Mr. Schmidt since the post of High Representative formally lost the support of the UN after an intervention by Beijing and Moscow.
The leader, a close ally of the Kremlin, enjoys great influence within the Bosnian Serb entity, where he fuels intra-community tensions with secessionist threats.