EU administration begins talks on OHR status: France wants 'reduction of powers', Brussels supports, Americans oppose

(Patria) - The administration of the European Union began talks about the status of the Office of the High Representative for BiH about thirty days ago, Istraga.ba learns.

“Three options are on the table: reduction of the OHR's powers, relocation of the OHR, and closure of the Office of the High Representative,” was confirmed to Istraga.ba from several diplomatic sources.

According to the same sources, EU officials tasked France with preparing materials that would then be submitted to all members of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) for BiH. During the initial talks, High Representative Christian Schmidt himself was excluded from the entire story. Only after insistence was Schmidt included in these discussions.

“After learning about this plan, the Americans strongly opposed it, after which the talks were 'slowed down'. But the EU, and especially the French, do not want to give up,” one source close to the OHR told Istraga.ba.

The story about closing the OHR was initiated by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, who discussed it with French President Emmanuel Macron during a visit to Paris in April. At that time, it was officially announced that Vučić and Macron had agreed to sign a contract for the procurement, i.e., delivery, of French Rafale fighter jets “within the next two months”. The day after Vučić's visit to Paris, RS President Milorad Dodik also traveled to France.

After the meeting, Dodik said that “in Paris he spoke with people from various fields and that there is interest in relations with the RS, most notably in the economy and culture”.

“The RS is stable, committed to peace and development. The RS has no intention of any destabilization that would lead to violence. On the other hand, it intends to preserve its political views and position and will not give up on that. The key question was, what do we see in the European Union?! A story is being spread here that the Balkans is the next hotspot of conflict. I assured them that there are no elements for such a thing, that it is pure propaganda by some Western circles who want to portray it that way,” Dodik stated for RTRS on April 11 this year.

It was precisely at Vučić's and Dodik's meetings with French officials and businessmen that lobbying for the closure of the OHR took place, which later resulted in the official initiation of the story about the OHR's status at the level of the European Union.

This is not the first time the French have initiated the story about closing the OHR. We recall that in 2010, WikiLeaks published a document according to which France requested the closure of the OHR in November 2009, which the US strongly opposed.

As stated in the document published at the time, France wanted to see a transfer of authority to a new European Union team in November, as well as a rapprochement with Europe to encourage Bosniaks to continue making progress on necessary reforms.

“Now the situation is almost identical. Except that in Brussels there are also forces advocating for at least a reduction of the OHR's powers,” our second diplomatic source states.

For a long time, according to Istraga's information, there has been a “conflict” between the US and the EU regarding the status of the OHR. Due to different views on the OHR, relations between the US ambassador to BiH, Michael Murphy, and the EU ambassador to BiH, Johann Sattler, have also deteriorated.