WHERE ARE THE EXCAVATORS? European path trapped in consociationalism: Dodik and Čović dictate, the Troika waits for a miracle

By: A. Čorbo-Zećo

When Bosnia and Herzegovina received the green light to open negotiations with the European Union in March 2024, the atmosphere was reminiscent of a national holiday. EU flags covered Sarajevo, the government celebrated a "historic breakthrough," and all those who warned that the green light was obtained "by the skin of their teeth" were declared pessimists, SDA bots, or opponents of the European path.

Today, a year and a half later, it is becoming clear how much of a double-edged sword that moment was. The Council of Ministers of BiH, even at today's session, did not adopt the Growth Plan, a key document for accessing hundreds of millions of euros in aid from EU funds.

The election of the chief negotiator has also been ongoing since then! It will be this one, it will be that one, and there is no one.

The decision today was made due to the opposition of Minister Staša Košarac (SNSD), while the Minister of Finance Srđan Amidžić (SNSD) did not attend the session at all.

The result of all this is that BiH risks losing 108.5 million euros by the end of the month, and exclusion from the entire development program of the European Commission, which all Western Balkan countries use except BiH, is not excluded.

While Brussels celebrated political consensus, it was clear in Sarajevo that this was a forced agreement for a "European photo opportunity." Without a substantive agreement, BiH's European path becomes a hostage of daily politics and blackmail. Every "yes" that BiH receives in Brussels simultaneously becomes a potential "no" as soon as domestic actors return.

The Growth Plan, worth billions of euros in the regional package, has been the subject of blockades by Milorad Dodik and SNSD for months. Dodik openly announced that he would undermine the European path, and now he is showing that his threats are not empty.

In such an atmosphere, the logical question is, what is High Representative Christian Schmidt waiting for? If BiH's negotiation status was more of a political reward than a result of reforms, Schmidt and the international community are facing even stronger blackmail. If, however, Schmidt resorts to his Bonn powers, he risks the fragile European consensus collapsing at the first obstacle.

Ultimately, the broader question remains whether the entire process is actually driven by the logic of a consociational system, in which ethnic vetoes and trading replace reforms and progress? If so, then even the negotiation status does not mean a substantive shift forward, but only confirms that BiH remains trapped in matrices that produce constant blockades.

In other words, the green light we celebrated may just be a spotlight highlighting the fact that we are still not moving forward.

Therefore, the celebration from March 2024 was just a "bread and circuses" performance.

We got negotiation status reluctantly, because the international community also wanted to show that bringing the Troika to power was good for the citizens. But, we see today that even that did not help them! Because the processes are dictated by Milorad Dodik and Dragan Čović, and they do it synchronously while the Troika, lost in time and space, expects a miracle to happen.

Well, I don't know, maybe they should hang EU flags around Sarajevo again to help, or fix the broken excavators!