The battle for Sarajevo (does not) lose the war for BiH, everything revolves around money

By E. Metaj

Sarajevo lost the first battle, the war continues. The opponent is not Milorad Dodik and his secessionism. That was forgotten for at least one day, because in the FBiH Parliament, the issue of fair revenue distribution opened up. This is a political issue and it has opened new political wars.

Sarajevo against the rest of FBiH, SDA against the Sarajevo troika, and local patriotism has also clashed. Sarajevo could lose a little, other cantons might not gain enough, and the winner is again populism devoid of real argumentation and a genuine sense of justice and solidarity.

Most federal deputies living in the capital have shown that they see BiH as the "Republic of Sarajevo". Although the "peasants won", there is still the most culture there because it requires money. In smaller towns, as vividly stated by DF representative Dževad Adžem, cultural centers have essentially turned into memorial centers.

Sarajevo is, and should be, the richest, it has the highest salaries, the best social welfare. Sarajevo has become self-sufficient, and that has become a problem.

Therefore, it is not only the SDA that is against Sarajevo, wanting to "take revenge" on the troika. It is not only the HDZ that has seen its own profit; representatives of the parties that make up the troika, but do not live in Sarajevo, are also against it. There might be envy, but they too, like Sarajevo politicians, want to please their voter base. 

In this regard, only the DF has shown enough political wisdom not to be carried away by local patriotism, which in its extreme becomes detrimental to the interests of the state. The DF did not allow the rest of FBiH to brutally confront Sarajevo by reducing the weighting factor to one. They voted unanimously against the amendment that threatened a real financial shock for Sarajevo Canton, but they were not so unanimous in the absolute defense of the (un)justified revenue distribution in FBiH, so Sarajevo received a weighting factor of 1.30.

Objectively, the irrational structure of the Federation of BiH came due at the Parliament of FBiH. The House of Representatives momentarily turned into the House of Cantons, where everyone sees only local interests.

It is clear that the KS Government regrets the 86, or less, million it will lose. It will be harder to fly into the sky with the helicopter that some ministers have long dreamed of. No one disputes that Sarajevo pays the most revenue into the single account and that less is returned to it, but it is also indisputable that out of FBiH's 4.8 billion trade deficit, 2.76 billion originates in Sarajevo. From this perspective, Sarajevo is an economic burden for FBiH. Most trade occurs in Sarajevo, while new value is created more in other cantons, which are forced to focus on production. Someone aptly pointed out on social networks with an example that all the coal mined in TK is burned in a thermal power plant in that canton, and all the revenue is accounted for by Sarajevo. The budgets of all other cantons combined are only about a third larger than Sarajevo's. Two-thirds of all employees in FBiH work there. Their average salary is only slightly more than two-thirds of that achieved in Sarajevo.

The revenues of Elektroprivreda BiH, BH Telecom, Autoceste, and other large public companies are registered there. State institutions, from which a significant amount of revenue flows into KS, are also located there. They are also a symbolic representation of the sad BiH reality. They are a paradigm of the "Republic of Sarajevo" that only sees itself. To improve their own standard of living achieved on the backs of BiH citizens. They have introduced social dining for themselves, so meat is neither expensive nor inaccessible to them, even though we import it instead of producing it.