Stop the BS, Oliver, we know each other!

By: Rasim Belko @rasimbelko

European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi visited Sarajevo these days, but he did not blush with shame, because this Hungarian official clearly does not know shame or morals, given that he interpreted the Resolution on the Genocide in Srebrenica as an attempt to impose collective responsibility on the Serbian people.

The fact that Varhelyi, with the help of the BiH Minister of Foreign Affairs Elmedin Konaković, tried to smooth over his excursion among the inhumane structures of genocide deniers to the BiH public does not mean that he has abandoned his support for the Greater Serbian policy, which has been disputing what the UN General Assembly adopted for days after the Resolution. Because, the recognition of the verdicts of the International Tribunal in The Hague is not something that should be explained with statements, but they are accepted and victims are respected in accordance with the civilizational values that Western Europe has long established.

Varhelyi is not from the West, let alone civilized, although he holds a position given to him by that West. And through the prism of loyalty to the Hungarian populist Viktor Orbán, we can view Varhelyi as a bureaucrat who is unfamiliar with Western principles and much closer to the retrograde policies and values of the underdeveloped Southeast. Therefore, it should not be surprising that Varhelyi sided with Vučić's interpretation of the Resolution, and then offered Bosniaks, with Konaković, a colorful lie of reconciliation.

Yesterday, that Varhelyi was selling a story at a forum in Sarajevo about the necessity of reforms needed for Bosnia and Herzegovina to move forward on its European path. It is tragicomic that an official from a country that has very little in common with Brussels and EU values has come to talk to us about reforms. Because, Varhelyi is an official from Orbán's Hungary, and that is the country that beat migrants, whose prime minister does not know what to do with two million Bosnian Muslims and often conditions sanctions against Russia, which he does not publicly support but secretly cheers for.

From one of the most undemocratic countries in Europe, an official came to explain to us how Bosnia and Herzegovina needed a person like Borjana Krišto to save us and lead us to the EU. And all this while the same Ms. Krišto, before the commissioner's eyes, uttered the foolishness that "High Representative Christian Schmidt plunged Bosnia and Herzegovina into crisis by amending the Election Law"!

I don't know how Varhelyi reacted, but it is clear that Krišto was saying what the commissioner wanted to hear, i.e., not to mention the real factors of the crisis in BiH, which are Milorad Dodik and Dragan Čović, but to shift the focus of responsibility to Schmidt. Because, Dodik is Varhelyi's friend, Čović is Krišto's boss, and Schmidt is a target that easily receives and absorbs blows.

Conversely, Varhelyi spoke today with Schmidt, who stated that political disputes and divisive rhetoric lead nowhere.

But, shifting responsibility to Schmidt suits the commissioner, given that he came to Sarajevo to score a few points needed for his further career, so he can view the chaotic situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina through the prism of Krišto's statement or, as he wrote in a statement, as a slight delay after a good euro-reform momentum. Can you imagine!

Neither is the crisis a pause, nor has there been any reform momentum, and Krišto is certainly not what we need because her Council of Ministers has long ceased to pass laws that would go into parliamentary procedure.

Nor, in the final analysis, is Bosnia and Herzegovina close to the EU, as European Commissioner Varhelyi is lying to us.

How politically satirical all of Varhelyi's statements were yesterday is also shown by the fact that he spoke about millions and billions of euros for a country that still hasn't adopted a budget, and his projection is at such a level that even in the event of a miracle and receiving funds, BiH will not be able to accept them. Because, those funds must come through the budget, and there is no budget, and it is very limited!

And finally, Varhelyi knows, just as all the European liars who march and parade through this country know, that there are no reforms and magic that can bring Bosnia and Herzegovina into the European Union before the constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina is unpacked and changed in the direction of approximating developed, democratically organized EU countries.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is stuck with Dayton and will not move, and as such, it can only serve the personal needs of EU officials, but it will not move until it moves away from the Constitution, which is part of the peace agreement and order created along military, genocidal, and Ustaše lines.

Therefore, the story that five, six, or however many legal solutions will make BiH more successful and closer to the European Union is hypocritical, if we know that these solutions are created by secessionist policies rooted in wartime interests and goals.

And as long as that is the case, the rule of law here is just an imagination in the story that we will reach the level of some Germany, France... with some law.

The European Union, as well as its strategic partners Great Britain and the USA, must decide whether they are for the Bosnia and Herzegovina whose constitutional and political order will be subordinate to the rule of law, democracy, and a systemic order, or for the status quo in which war is just around the corner, while peace is suffocating us quietly and elegantly until we disappear.

Stop the BS, Oliver, we know each other!