Things are simmering again in the Balkans. The region is facing its biggest crisis since the Balkan War: The Serb leader Milorad Dodik (62) in Bosnia-Herzegevina threatens to blow up the country.
“It will not be peaceful,” warned Sefik Dzaferovic (64), one of the three presidents of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who were each elected to represent a specific ethnic group.
The system of government in Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of the poorest countries in Europe, is considered to be extremely complicated. To end the war that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Bosnia alone, the country was divided into two parts that continue to cement ethnic divisions to this day.
The state, the sub-states and the ten cantons each have their own legislative and executive structures – instead of a national education ministry, for example, there are 13 regional ones.
Critics accuse Dodik of irresponsibility
Dodik is threatening to split the Republika Srpska – the Serbian territory he controls – from the rest of Bosnia. As early as December, the Bosnian media reported that the parliament of the Serbian part of the country decided to withdraw powers from the central government in the areas of taxation, justice, security and defense.
Now Dodik has apparently stopped meetings with the country’s other regional presidents and vowed to withdraw from state institutions such as the Bosnian armed forces and the tax authorities in favor of his own authorities.
Dodik is sure to support Orban
Some political rivals and foreign diplomats refer to recent scandals in the face of Dodik’s harsh rhetoric. Dodik wants to divert attention from corruption allegations and to mobilize his nationalist base before the elections in October. “He hates stability because then he has to explain why we live the way we live,” says the Serbian opposition leader Branislav Borenovic (47). Dodik “plays with the emotions of his people” and “does not care about the consequences”.
However, a quarter of a century after the bloody Balkan War, that causes justified fear. As early as October, a United Nations report described the situation as “the greatest existing threat” to the country’s future since the early 1990s.
That makes Europe nervous. Germany and Great Britain are already discussing sanctions. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban (58), in turn, has assured Dodik of support. (kin)