Bandić: Where and why are our champions of European integration silent today?!

Written by: Muamer Bandić, representative in the Assembly of the Sarajevo Canton and member of the Presidency of SBiH

Nothing has so brutally stripped bare all the spins and lies that our dear troika members have been showering us with over the past year, as did the European Commission's 2024 Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina, published yesterday.

Let us just recall the massive stoking of the people with propaganda headlines like "Europe is ours!", then the daily brainwashing with "European momentum" and "unprecedented progress", and how we were supposedly on the threshold of the EU, had it by the scruff of the neck, and were just about to crack the door open and step inside, when some Brussels desk clerk turned us back with the evergreen: You're still missing one more paper!

The report has been published, and the never-more-European government is silent as a grave. There is still not a single statement or comment, neither from institutions nor from the erstwhile "champions of European integration", not even from those who until yesterday were assuring us they were on a first-name basis with Brussels, while the rest of us could neither read nor see properly with our own eyes, and they were God-given to explain to us these abstractions unknown to us.

The report thus grounded all the arrogance and haughtiness of the power-holders, with the finding that in the past year, in 20 out of 33 areas, absolutely no progress was made, while in 9 areas limited progress was achieved, in 3 some progress, and in only 1 area good progress. As for the 8 key steps needed for adopting the negotiating framework and obtaining a date for the formal start of accession negotiations, the European Commission did not even conduct an explicit assessment of the situation. And perhaps it is better that it did not.

How far we are from opening negotiations, no one actually knows, nor dares to say publicly, because that would mean admitting that everything they told us was a deliberately constructed lie and a smokescreen, just to stay in power at any cost. Telling the truth would also mean telling you that the main obstructors of EU integration and reform processes are their "reformed partners" SNSD and HDZ, with whom they maintain close relations through continuous dialogue and relaxation of relations, while spitting on and degrading everything Bosnian and Bosniak.

Although we have all known this for years, you will never hear it from their mouths. Simply put, they cannot bring themselves to utter the truth because of their chairs and the deals they knowingly entered into, even though they were told what awaited them, and it was clear to everyone except them how all this would end.

EU Ambassador to BiH Luigi Soreca said on the occasion of the report's publication: "After March, there was a halt in the implementation of reforms. That is, not only were reforms stopped, but we also saw periods marked by rhetoric and actions aimed at divisions, instead of dialogue, negotiations and compromise, which are key for a better future. Any action that is unconstructive or undermines the fundamental values on which the EU is founded also undermines the prospects for a European future."

Our overly clever and overly honest Minister of Foreign Affairs did not call a press conference on this occasion to wave some paper, to insult him and accuse him of lies, as he usually does, especially when it comes to inconvenient journalists.

That is why the part of the Report dealing with freedom of speech and political pressure on the media is particularly interesting, where our champions of European integration stand shoulder to shoulder with the leader from Laktaši. That section states that "political pressure, intimidation and harassment of journalists, including physical and verbal attacks, without an adequate institutional response" continued, and that "political influence on public broadcasters remains present, and their financial sustainability is increasingly threatened."

It is precisely in this part that what we have been witnessing in recent years in the Federation of BiH and the Sarajevo Canton is accurately described. This pressure of the authorities on the media, through management structures and financing, has enabled the media construction of a false image of the world tailored to the imposed and reality-alienated government. The interaction between the government and citizens has been completely stifled and replaced by a Balkan version of "Big Brother", who daily chants to us in chorus from the screens: "In the world there is one empire - in it friendship reigns - in it everything is beautiful, in it everything is gentle - in it everything rejoices!"

And whoever tells them it is different is an enemy and a liar, and in the last 6 years of this government, the debt of the Sarajevo Canton has increased by 500 million marks and is larger than the total debt of all other nine cantons in the Federation of BiH! And yet the Sarajevo Canton is already paying interest for projects that have not even been implemented. And of course, if you ask those who manage all processes and bear direct responsibility for such a situation, you will get the already familiar answer - the opposition is to blame!

And I believe that the first reactions of our overly clever and overly honest troika members to yesterday's European Commission Report will be exactly that, that someone else is to blame for everything, not them. Well, it is high time they learned that power does not only mean ministerial positions, offices, good salaries, secretaries and drivers, but also responsibility for inaction and the chaos they create among our people, weakening the position of pro-Bosnian forces and our state in these turbulent geopolitical times.