EU Enlargement Commissioner: Dodik will not be an interlocutor when a solution is sought

(Patria) - EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said in an interview for N1 Slovenia that Milorad Dodik will not be an interlocutor when solutions for Bosnia and Herzegovina are discussed. Commenting on Dodik, she said he is a "politician with secessionist aspirations, who is against European integration, does not respect the order established by the Dayton Agreement, and arrogates to himself rights that do not belong to him."

Janković is also on good terms with the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, who, after the verdict, further intensifies separatist aspirations. At the same time, separatist ideas among Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina have somewhat revived, although for now they are nowhere near as serious as Dodik's. The prevailing assessment is that this is one of the most dangerous moments since the end of the war in the Balkans, and Dodik even threatens that the situation will soon be similar to that after the breakup of Yugoslavia. How do you see the current situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is this crisis distancing it from the European Union, or might the EU perhaps try to use the situation to bring Bosnia and Herzegovina into membership as soon as possible?

-I am very glad you mentioned Bosnia and Herzegovina, because it is one of those countries for which I will be especially happy when we can finally start negotiations on its accession to the European Union. We have been waiting for a long time for the situation to stabilise enough so that Bosnia and Herzegovina can fulfil its obligations and implement the reforms needed to start negotiations, after it received candidate status – Slovenia really contributed a lot to that.

The current situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is tense, and Dodik is certainly a politician who at this moment is preventing the normalisation of conditions in BiH and preventing it from doing everything necessary.

That means a politician with secessionist aspirations, who is against European integration, does not respect the order established by the Dayton Agreement, and arrogates to himself rights that do not belong to him, cannot, of course, contribute to ensuring BiH's European path.

We are trying to find a solution on how to bring Bosnia and Herzegovina from Dayton, which is currently still the agreement that ensures the state's organisation, to Brussels. In short, from Dayton to Brussels, in a way that all those reforms that candidates must implement are also carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

What could that solution be?

- At the moment, we are still looking for a solution to ensure that the decision-making process is not so based on ethnic lines, but that what is good for Bosnia and Herzegovina comes to the fore. BiH is among those countries, and even when looking specifically at the Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska, even in the latter, more than 50% of people support the European perspective.

We are working intensively so that negotiations can start as soon as possible.

So, Dodik will not be your interlocutor when you discuss solutions…

-No, he will not, Kos said.