Thirty years after the siege of Sarajevo, the secessionist forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina continue to grow. A new possible crisis is brewing in the heart of Europe.
Already last November, the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, an institution that represents the international community and guarantees compliance with the Dayton peace accords, warned of the risk of an implosion of the Serbo-Croatian-Muslim federation created in 1995 and the resumption of the inter-ethnic conflict in the country.
The secessionist aims of Milorad Dodik, a Serbian member of the tripartite presidency, have been going on for some time, in the hope that Republika Srpska – Bosnia and Herzegovina’s majority Serb entity – will join Belgrade.
At the end of 2021 Dodik canceled the amendment to the Bosnian penal code which prohibits the denial of the Srebrenica massacre and the glorification of war criminals – an amendment imposed in July by the then High Representative Valentin Inzko – and prompted the regional Parliament of the Republika Srpska to pursue separatist paths in the military, judicial and fiscal fields.
The idea is the reconstruction of a Bosnian Serb army and the transfer of Sarajevo’s exclusive powers to the Republika Srpska.
In early February, Serbian lawmakers voted in favor of the creation of separate organs of the Republika Srpska: the Superior Council of the Judiciary and the Public Prosecutor, a law later deemed unconstitutional by High Representative Schmidt.
Dodik’s ambitions, even if held back, can always count on the support of Vladimir Putin. In recent years, Serbs and Serbia have maintained a facade neutrality amid the growing rivalry between the West and Russia. But relations with the Kremlin are still very good: Belgrade needs Moscow’s support especially on the issue of Kosovo at the United Nations.
But it is for the energy sector that Serbia cannot do without Russia. Belgrade currently enjoys a 6-month contract for the supply of gas at a particularly advantageous price. The country depends on Russian energy for 89%, a constraint that inevitably translates into enormous vulnerability.
If it wanted to, Brussels could put this supply in crisis because Russian gas and oil bound for Serbia pass through Hungary and Bulgaria, two member countries of the Union. Furthermore, Serbia has not adhered to the sanctions against Moscow and is not on the list of hostile countries drawn up by the Kremlin, which is allegedly taking into account the friendship of Belgrade.
“The central element of the closeness between Serbia and Russia is the sharing of an authoritarian political model, certainly the most alarming aspect of this relationship,” Giorgio Fruscione, an ISPI analyst, told Linkiesta. “Dodik has based his political career on resorting to threats to the holding of the central state, trying to undermine the collective institutions of the fragile Bosnian state. These threats have increased in intensity over the years, reaching what was likely the tipping point between the summer of 2021 and the beginning of this year. The threats therefore predate the war in Ukraine, but the latter only makes the Bosnian crisis even more alarming. This is a reason to be further worried in Europe ».
Not surprisingly, on the same day that Putin began the invasion of Ukraine, the Eufor international contingent in Bosnia-Herzegovina was doubled with the aim of creating a deterrent against possible consequences of the current Bosnian institutional instability.
These are choices made before the war began but whose timing suggests that the European Union is preparing to avert the worst-case scenario in the Balkans.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina we are witnessing a party game in which the tones are now much brighter than in the past. But the trend of threats has been going on since the war, and in recent months it has “only, so to speak, increased in intensity and scope,” explains the analyst.
It would therefore be wrong to think of a conflict similar to that of thirty years ago. That is an almost unrepeatable condition, starting from the fact that it would not be economically sustainable and would not have the same support from the population.
«I believe – adds Fruscione – that there will not be a real war because, for the Bosnian Serb leaders, it is much cheaper to threaten it than to really fight it. From a political point of view, it is more convenient to stand up as defenders of the national group in a multinational country. And, on the other hand, it is much more convenient to stand as defenders of the national group against the secessionist threat. Without wanting to minimize the threats to the Bosnian central state, which certainly remain serious, the scenario that could arise is a sort of Balkan Transnistria, therefore a state that declares itself independent without any international recognition ”. However, a picture that for Bosnia-Herzegovina would entail an institutional paralysis from which it would be difficult to escape.
The promise of stabilization of the Balkans through integration into the European Union is not so concrete today. But in the face of the war in Ukraine, Brussels could change its attitude towards Belgrade.
Serbia still has a very first foreign policy objective to join the European Union. In Belgrade, on a rhetorical level, the role of leader of the Balkan integration process is still recognized, not without hypocrisy, because Brussels has turned a blind eye to the country’s democratic regression.
“Due to the war in Ukraine – concludes Fruscione – the European Union could decide not to further tolerate Serbian behavior, that is to make use of a privileged economic and commercial relationship with the members of the Union and at the same time exploit the political alliance with Moscow to pursue its international policy goals. However, the pressure of Western partners could soon make itself felt on Serbia: the hope is that a conditionality will be placed on the process of accession to the European Union ”.
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