STATE PROPERTY OUTSIDE OF BIH Will Schmidt be part of the Council of Ministers team at the Zagreb meeting?

By Muharem Cero

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Bevanda, Vrankić, Čolak, Grubeša (in two terms), a faceless man, Davor Bunoza. The first two continuously controlled the issue of succession. 

The others mentioned controlled Annex G (state passive balance sheet - BiH's property outside of BiH) with a similar task, essentially ensuring that Bosnia and Herzegovina was not vested with ownership and possession of its property in the Republic of Croatia. 

All of them wore the HDZ party jersey and followed the political agenda of their parent Zagreb and domestic Čović's work assignment. The beginning of the mandate of the newly elected authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina at all levels is strongly marked by the issue of resolving the status of state property. 

The concern is shared by criminal-corrupt structures created by the usurpation and alienation of the results of successfully completed tasks, and the lack of protection of the enormous Bosnian-Herzegovinian non-monetary treasury. 

Rarely was property in the country effectively protected by the implementation of the Prohibition Law. The rule was to usurp and plunder with impunity, and the so-called political elites of "mine" would take care of the rest. In the meantime, the state borrowed with valuable and stock market securities, and foreign bankers extracted huge dividends from the murky waters. That's how it is today!

The story of the property of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its sub-state arrangements in post-Yugoslav states is a special story. The grey zone of high transnational corruption and organized crime devastated Bosnian family silver for small money or, more often, at no cost at all (value of several billion euros). 

One could say that BiH grant-funded oligarchic-tycoon elites and the elites of neighboring countries. 

In the announcement of the meeting between the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the Council of Ministers of BiH (unfortunately, a government only in potential or atrophied state) scheduled for June 20, the issue of property-legal relations between the two countries will certainly be on the agenda, for who knows what time. 

While the leading news of BiH media increasingly reports on working meetings of experts at the OHR aimed at "assisting" state parliamentarians in the process of adopting the law on state property, it is not possible to read from the brief statements whether the held meetings (and there were five) for the needs of the Council of Ministers of BiH and the relevant state Minister of Justice Bunoza, in the process of preparing the Zagreb meeting, also included determining the method of resolving the issue of BiH's state property in Croatia. 

If the High Representative Schmidt treats the issue of state property in BiH exclusively as a technical one, which it is not and will not be, given the complete picture of the truth about the character of the war in BiH, and the proven double aggression through joint criminal enterprises against BiH, then the issue of property in Croatia should not be "disputed" but almost artisanal, which we have not heard from Schmidt himself. 

Given that every attempt so far to resolve state property has also included the issue of resolving the state passive balance sheet, outside of BiH, the High Representative in the Agenda 5+2 also has an obligation from his mandate to do everything, even to apply "Bonn powers" to the adoption of which the hand of the Republic of Croatia contributed, so it would be expected that, to begin with, resolving the issue of state property would confirm the state sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina by ensuring the guaranteed state equality of all successor countries for Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

Schmidt has the mechanisms but also questionable will, with which he would finally, after 32 years, bring Bosnia and Herzegovina into possession of its property in Croatia. Unfulfilled ownership rights are piling up. 

One-third of JUNAF, now JANAF, Port of Ploče, Šipad's port in Šibenik, Agrokomerc's parts of ports in Koper and Rijeka, the Pulmonary Hospital in Cavtat, dozens of hotel complexes starting from Hidrogradnja's in Baška Voda to shareholdings in Dubrovnik hotels, huge attractive land on the Adriatic islands and along the Adriatic coast, trade union resorts and villas, residential buildings of the republican bodies of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vis 1, Vis 2 in Dubrovnik, the castle in Trsteno (where Russian oligarchs vacation), as well as a number of luxury apartments at unknown addresses starting from Zagreb along the entire coast.

The list that would be mentioned is long. However, just one click in the relevant ministry of state property of the Republic of Croatia would clearly present an orderly record to Schmidt upon his request, which has not happened so far, neither from those listed at the beginning of the text, nor from all of Schmidt's predecessors in the OHR. 

The arguments are legally irrefutable and guarantee the validity of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian interest. The Succession Agreement established complete equality of all newly formed states that signed the International Succession Agreement, but, despite this, Bosnia and Herzegovina unfortunately does not have such treatment, and the fact that in 2002, shortly after signing the Succession Agreement, hoping for reciprocity from other successor countries, it returned and vested all other countries that had their property in BiH, including the Republic of Croatia. Negative reciprocity was met with positive reciprocity. 

Amendments to the Law on State Property in the Republic of Croatia have enabled multi-decade concessions of Bosnian property, and in a newly packaged modality, Bosnia and Herzegovina has moved away from the possibility of realizing its succession rights, with a high probability that this issue, "with good will" from Plenković's Government, could be compensation for small money. 

One could say peanuts for Bosnians. Such a possible scenario can and must be stopped only by the High Representative Christian Schmidt, given that the issue of resolving state property also includes this issue. 

It would be good and desirable for Schmidt himself to be part of the Council of Ministers' delegation at the Zagreb meeting, accompanied by experts. 

As we are accustomed to negative surprises from Schmidt, can a positive one happen this time? Won't it happen!?