ANALYSIS BY FUAD ĐIDIĆ Bosnia and Herzegovina after the visit of Mark Rutte and Kaja Kallas!

“Neutral” NATO, and, “neutral” EU in the face of quiet Serbian-Hungarian occupation
of Bosnia and Herzegovina

* If Mark Rutte and Kaja Kallas were brave leaders with vision, then, at the very least,
they would have requested, if not initiated, a serious international intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

By: Fuad Đidić

A few weeks ago, BiH was visited by Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, and Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was also visiting. These two visits by high-ranking guests come at a time of the greatest political crisis in the country since 1995, with threats of secession and the banning of judicial and police institutions in the Republika Srpska entity.

The least the public expects is to hear good news about the determination of EUFOR forces to provide full and unequivocal support in apprehending individuals for whom arrest warrants have been issued for undermining the constitutional order of the country.
However, the public is being delivered only “calming” messages, completely unexpectedly, following the old and well-known recipe of “agreement of the three parties”.

The almost identical statements by Mark Rutte and Kaja Kallas, made three weeks apart, are a real cold shower for our public, leaving an even deeper sense of misery and despair in the country's political life.

In response to Dodik's undermining of the pillars of the state, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte responded with a diplomatic call for dialogue, with the instruction to the BiH Presidency: “there is no other show in town… this country is looking at the three of you, and you must find solutions”.

Kaja Kallas was not far from the spirit of this “agreement” message, stating in the announcement of her visit to Sarajevo: “politicians must… overcome, not deepen divisions…”

Her visit to EUFOR forces was announced as ensuring the “status quo”. Kallas, by all accounts, arrived in Sarajevo without any serious instructions for EUFOR forces to support the apprehension of individuals for whom the BiH Prosecutor's Office has issued arrest warrants.

The leaders of the two most powerful organizations, which for the past 30 years have been and remain the basis from which we drew hope for the future of this country, sent us messages from the failed rhetoric of the 90s. To make the paradox greater, these messages are just “music to the ears” of Putin's plans for BiH regarding agreement and further promotion of the policy of “the right of peoples to self-determination”.

It will not be long before, after Rutte's visit, starting March 10, 2025, we will see the real content and echo of the NATO Secretary General's diplomatic messages about the need for an “agreement of the three parties”.

Shortly thereafter, Dodik, under very suspicious circumstances, went to Moscow, and immediately upon his return on April 4, 2025, he took steps that will once again clearly testify that he is precisely Putin's most effective tool in the Balkans.

Despite the calls from NATO and the EU, as well as their “strong support” for peace in BiH, Dodik has shown that he can simply compromise that peace, which they guarantee, at any moment. The next day, Dodik will, without hesitation, in front of the European public, take a new, scandalous and illegal step and, following the Russian recipe, expel the German minister, Anna Luhrmann, from Banja Luka as a “persona non grata”.

We had not even managed to find the right answers as to what kind of “merciless” peace Rutte and Kallas offered in Bosnia and Herzegovina, when Dodik came out with another, terrible announcement, which in essence, could be a watershed moment in the three-decade-long political drama in the country. Again, following instructions from Moscow, Dodik threatened a military alliance of the Republika Srpska entity with Serbia and Hungary.

This moment could be a turning point.

However, the announcement of a “triple military alliance” hides some other, well-thought-out and previously prepared scenario. It is giving the green light for the entry of foreign armies, from Serbia and Hungary, into the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e., the Republika Srpska entity. In essence, such a military alliance is another name for the quiet and peaceful occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Public fears are all the more justified because Hungary has already sent a group of at least 70 of its special police officers with special tasks on a trial mission to the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who entered the country under very suspicious circumstances.

Instructions and support from the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy to EUFOR forces in such a tense situation, to stand on the entity line of demarcation to separate forces, would bring not only a diplomatic but also a military victory for Putin in the Balkans.

After everything that has happened between the two visits of the highest representatives of NATO and the EU, we in Bosnia and Herzegovina are rightly asking ourselves: what kind of NATO and EU have its highest envoys presented to our public.

“Neutral” NATO. “Neutral” EU. Yes, “neutral”, not some non-aligned NATO or non-aligned EU.

Here, the picture of two “neutral” organizations with frozen blood is revealed, which are actually undermining, not strengthening, our sense of security and protection. The pathetic message of its leaders about “agreement” is all the more terrible because it comes at a time when many NATO member countries are still hesitating or refusing, like Croatia, to impose sanctions on Dodik and his secessionist team regarding freedom of movement, as Germany did previously. Has the true nature of two faltering “neutral” organizations been shown at this dramatic moment for peace in BiH? Was Trump really right when he said that one should get rid of such “neutral organizations” that call on the party that won a legal dispute to bargain with the aggressor on a common state?

The unpunished undermining of BiH institutions clearly shows how this NATO and this EU, as we have seen through the statements of its highest representatives during visits to BiH, deserve to be reformed at their core or to go into history.
We have witnessed once how Europe in Bosnia in 1992-95 missed a historic opportunity to consolidate politically and militarily by establishing a unified political stance towards BiH. If they had done so then, this country, as well as the entire Balkans, would be a much better and more prosperous place for Europe's future.

If Rutte and Kallas were brave leaders with vision, then, at the very least, they would have requested, if not initiated, a serious international intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Without this intervention, without a decisive step, instability in this country will only deepen and lead the entire region into new uncertainty. The first step in that decisiveness is to strengthen and encourage ALTHEA forces to act throughout BiH and provide full support in bringing Putin's “warriors” in the Balkans to justice.