Nationalistic messages from 'civic' Croatia

By: A. Aljović
 
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is on an official visit to Croatia. This is the first meeting between the President of Serbia and the President of Croatia Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović after almost two years. The last one was held in April 2016 in Serbia.
The two countries are burdened by a number of problems, primarily unresolved issues from the war past, the issue of national minorities, as well as the border issue.

“Relations are burdened by history, and today we did not touch upon it and did not discuss it. It prevents us from calling the relations between the two countries friendly,” Grabar-Kitarović told reporters after the meeting with Vučić, adding that she is encouraged by the existence of a will on both sides to overcome these problems.
 
“Serbia and Croatia will have to have better relations, whether some in the political systems of both countries like it or not. We must look to the future with different eyes,” Vučić said.

Analysts, on the other hand, also note that despite the accumulated problems in their own countries, Vučić and Grabar-Kitarović are still not giving up on interfering in the internal affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as they showed during the press conference in Zagreb. This could mean a continuation of the dangerous policy against BiH from the nineties, but also looking for an alibi for the internal problems of Serbia and Croatia on the backs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or on the backs of the peoples living in BiH.

President Grabar-Kitarović stated that Croatia believes that the Election Law of BiH must be changed and upgraded, in a way that Croat representatives in the Presidency of BiH should be elected exclusively by Croats.

This thesis is also advocated by the HDZ of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Civic options assess that this would be a new ethnic division in the country, which is contrary to civic Europe. Finally, Croatia itself declares itself as a civic country. Besides, it is unacceptable for Croatia to influence the internal politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina at all, with any proposals, as long as Bosnia and Herzegovina does not voluntarily request consulting assistance from a neighboring country. 

Vučić was much more moderate this time in Zagreb when it came to commenting on the political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He said that Dragan Čović, member of the Presidency of BiH, is a welcome guest in Serbia “and is always welcome.” 

“I did not go into details about the election law, and that would not be fair. We believe that Serbs and Croats have good relations in BiH and we want them to establish such relations with the Bosniak community as well,” said Vučić. It remained unclear whether Vučić made a slip of the tongue when he said “Bosniak community” and not “Bosniak people”, and why he considered it important to justify in Zagreb that he has good relations with Dragan Čović.

Some analysts see Vučić's milder rhetoric as mere clever maneuvering - unlike Grabar-Kitarović's brazen openness - and that the Serbian president will show a sincere attitude towards BiH only when he publicly challenges the retrograde policy of the president of the BiH entity Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik. Supporting the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while at the same time supporting Dodik, who advocates for the disintegration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, cannot go hand in hand.

Director of the International Institute for Middle Eastern and Balkan Studies from Ljubljana, dr. Zijad Bećirović, has previously stated that if Croatia and Serbia wanted an agreement in BiH on key problems in the country, it would be achieved overnight. “But the opposite is happening - Serbia and Croatia are exporting problems to BiH.”