Efendić: The letter from international ambassadors to Nikšić is support for partition or acceptance of BiH's partition

"BiH will not receive help from the international community, and the impotence of the High Representative has been shown; it does not reach further than the inter-entity line," said the leader of the Party of BiH, Semir Efendić, for N1. He sharply criticized the Trojka, accusing it again of handing over the economic and security sectors to Dodik, and of preferring "turncoats" over parties that are for the preservation and progress of BiH. He accused the international community, as well as Schmidt, of being for ethnic divisions, not for a normal state of BiH.

A “Play” in Banja Luka

How do you comment on Christian Schmidt's move not to go to Banja Luka yesterday after all? Did Dodik outplay him in this match?

It's all a play and a show for the naive. He shouldn't have announced his visit if he hadn't firmly planned to carry it out. The crucial moment is that BiH expects too much from the international community and will receive no help from it. The impotence of the High Representative is being shown.

The opposition was invited to the meeting, but they did not respond. Igor Crnadak said the problem was with Schmidt?

I don't know too many details about the exact way the meeting was scheduled, but I know that Dodik has long met the conditions for dismissal, while the High Representative is not doing so and is acting as if he is only the High Representative for FBiH. With the latest events, he has confirmed that his power does not reach further than the inter-entity line.

He shifted that part of the job to the Prosecutor's Office, the indictment against Dodik has been confirmed?

I have doubts whether the judicial institutions have the strength to carry this through to the end.

“The Trojka parties have given Dodik strength and empowered him”

You have criticized the Trojka for their actions in state government these days. Do you think something would be different if SDA were in power instead of Trojka?

That is the general opinion in the public. We are witnessing a kind of secession before our eyes. In the previous mandate, we did not reach this point where laws and decisions of the entity assembly declare decisions of the BiH Constitutional Court and the OHR invalid. This is more than what was there before. The Trojka parties have given Dodik strength and empowered him. If the opposition from RS had been at the state level and they had been given the security sector, he would not be so comfortable in his behavior. It is political dilettantism, blinded by the desire for a position, to form a government with Dodik at all costs, to give him the majority of state instruments, and then to watch it.

Can the five laws from the key European priorities annul that?

No.

If we start negotiations with the EU?


That doesn't change anything. North Macedonia started them long ago, and it can take years. The only possible progress when it comes to the EU and BiH would be if the EU insisted on the full implementation of human rights judgments.

“There is less and less of the state”

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, following the appeal of Slaven Kovačević, made a ruling establishing that his rights in the context of voting for candidates for the state House of Peoples and the Presidency of BiH were violated. Will this judgment meet the same fate as others, or will it be implemented?

That is a matter for the EU and politicians in BiH. Those decisions should be implemented, but not talked about. This is the BiH Constitution, which has given priority to human rights over all others and that they are above all parts of the Constitution. If the EU is a friend of BiH, it should insist on that, not on cosmetic changes to the laws. There is no sincere intention here to make BiH a normal state. The High Representative himself has shown that he is more for the ethnic principle than for building a modern civic state. That is why we are in a situation where we cannot agree institutionally. There is less and less of the state, and more and more concern among citizens. Dodik knows that there is a significant number of citizens and forces that would oppose secession; he is more aware of this than the rest of the political scene. I think we are reaching the culmination of the international community's powerlessness in BiH.

This coalition is in the most difficult position, it seems, at the federal level, after your party did not remain part of that coalition. Could you and Trojka have done more together?

If we had stayed together, we could have achieved quite a lot in a way. They did not accept us as a serious partner. For them, HDZ is a partner, and when we say you cannot support an HDZ candidate for judge of the Constitutional Court without an agreement with us, they did not listen.