Bosniak politicians are silent: Dodik announces blockade of BiH's path to NATO with talk of military property

The last step towards NATO membership, or rather the activation of the Membership Action Plan (MAP), is precisely the answers to questions related to immovable military property, writes the Patria News Agency.  

This implies that it should be registered as state property.

Lately, as the issue of activating the MAP for BiH will be considered at the NATO summit in June 2016, the President of Republika Srpska and leader of SNSD has been increasingly reviving the Banja Luka Agreement, signed in March 2012 by the presidents of SNSD, SDS, SDP BiH, SDA, HDZ BiH, and HDZ 1990.

The Banja Luka Agreement stipulates that all property not necessary for the functioning of BiH institutions should be allocated to the entities and lower levels of government, that prospective military property should be registered to the Ministry of Defence of BiH, and all other property to the entities and municipalities.

However, after the Banja Luka Agreement, which never came to life, at the end of 2014, during the formation of the government, the coalition agreement signed by SDA, DF, HDZ BiH, and the Alliance for Changes stated that the signatories agreed to register 63 locations to the state of BiH as soon as possible. This rendered the Banja Luka Agreement invalid, which President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik is now trying to bring back from the dead.

Dodik stated on Friday (December 25), as a guest on TV Pink, that SDA wants to destabilize Republika Srpska and that the agreement signed by representatives of the Alliance for Changes, SDA, and the Democratic Front is heading in the same direction.

Dodik further warns that this agreement, signed by the leaders of several parties from Republika Srpska, including the president of PDP Mladen Ivanić, with the president of SDA Bakir Izetbegović, stipulates that military property will henceforth be registered at the BiH level, which former High Representative in BiH Paddy Ashdown also insisted on earlier, and which SNSD opposes.

- The agreement on state and military property, signed five years ago, was 'destroyed' by foreigners in BiH. That agreement enabled BiH to resolve the issue of state property and unblock the MAP, Dodik said.

The issue of registering military property has been one of the key political issues for 11 years, around which parties cannot reach an agreement and proceed with the registration process.

The Peace Implementation Council called on BiH authorities back in 2004 to find a solution to the issue of state property. Subsequently, the Commission for State Property was formed, with the task of developing criteria for determining state property and its distribution among BiH, the entities, and Brčko District.

A year later, the then High Representative Paddy Ashdown enacted laws at the state and entity levels temporarily prohibiting the transfer of state property.

The 2012 Banja Luka Agreement stipulates that all property not necessary for the functioning of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina should be allocated to the entities and lower levels of government, that prospective military property should be registered to the Ministry of Defence of BiH, and all other property to the entities and municipalities. The Constitutional Court of BiH ruled that state property belongs to the state of BiH and that Republika Srpska has no jurisdiction over that property.

In 2013, an initiative was launched to pass a law on the disposal of immovable military property, but the draft law never passed.

For the MAP to be activated, it is necessary to complete the registration of prospective military property, continue engagement in international peacekeeping missions, and complete the process of resolving surplus weapons and ammunition. Judging by Dodik's latest statements, he will do everything he can to block BiH's path to NATO by insisting on registering military property not to the state but to the entities, for which the unfreezing of the MAP is a prerequisite. Bosniak politicians are silent for now.