Dysfunctional Council of Ministers of BiH: EU path stalled, HDZ dominates, Serb minister missing, appointed Bosniaks nowhere to be found

By Amra Vrabac

From the fastest formed to the most dysfunctional Council of Ministers of BiH, two years have passed. After BiH opened accession negotiations with the European Union in March 2024, BiH institutions, led by the Council of Ministers of BiH, are lost in time and space.

The chief negotiator has not been appointed, the Reform Agenda is delayed, two laws in the field of judiciary (Law on HJPC and Law on BiH Court) have not been adopted, and two laws are delayed, for which BiH is threatened with the FATF grey list. Only after it became clear that the one-year monitoring had expired and that BiH had no more time, did the Ministry of Security of BiH and the Ministry of Justice shift into high gear and start working on drafting laws. And regardless of the fact that one of these laws was adopted by the Council of Ministers of BiH, it has not yet been adopted by the BiH Parliament.

The statements of ministers after each session clearly show how dysfunctional the Council of Ministers of BiH is, as it is evident that everyone has their own view of the relations within the Council of Ministers of BiH and blames others for the failure.

Since January 2025, the Council of Ministers of BiH has been unconstitutional, given that there are two ministers from the Serb people, while Bosniaks have three positions, and Croats have as many as four (presiding minister Borjana Krišto and three ministers – justice, civil affairs, and deputy minister of security who fully manages the Ministry after the arrest of Nenad Nešić).

After the fiasco with the appointment of Goran Selak as Minister of Security, who withdrew himself from further procedure in March 2025, Krišto has never delegated a new proposal, thus HDZ has the most personnel in the Council of Ministers of BiH, appropriating one position from the Serb people. However, even Milorad Dodik does not comment on this much, or at all, perhaps thus preserving good relations with the partner HDZ.

The last session of the Council of Ministers of BiH could not pass without scandal, so after the statements of the Minister of Transport and Communications Edin Forto and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH Elmedin Konaković regarding the decisions from that session, Krišto reacted, stating that the ministers were not presenting accurate information.

“Inaccurately presented information about voting at the session on items that were considered but not adopted, as well as an attempt to minimize the agenda in public, undoubtedly confirm the avoidance of responsibility. Ministers, as holders of executive functions on behalf of ministries, are proposers and owners of the materials considered at the session, and the Chairwoman of the Council of Ministers of BiH includes everything they propose on the agenda, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure of the Council of Ministers of BiH,” Krišto stated.

However, the examples of delaying certain appointments, avoiding the dismissal of Darko Ćulum from the head of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), and removing certain decisions from the agenda also show that things have not been functioning in the Council of Ministers of BiH for a long time.
The Council of Ministers of BiH failed the responsibility test last year when it did not dismiss Ćulum, even though he had resigned and left SIPA for the MUP of RS at the time of the attack on state institutions. After four months, Ćulum withdrew his resignation, given that he was not dismissed, and on July 14th, he reappeared in the office of the Director of SIPA.

The absurdity of political appointments is reflected in the Ćulum case. Instead of insisting on his dismissal, the Trojka parties supported the appointment of the Deputy Director of SIPA, Dragan Andrić, while Bosniaks retired en masse, leaving the agency without leading personnel from the Bosniak people. What interests connect the Trojka parties and Darko Ćulum is not entirely clear, but it is evident that the state of BiH has lost in this case. And those who swore to respect the laws and the Constitution of BiH did not do so.

The Ćulum case is archived for them, and it seems for the BiH Prosecutor's Office as well, where a criminal complaint against Ćulum and Borjana Krišto is pending because she did not initiate the appointment of a new Minister of Security.

For the public, and for those whose memory is as short as a candle wick, we will remind you that Darko Ćulum's term as director expired back in July 2024. No one except the media talks about him meeting the conditions for retirement while sending others into retirement.

Thus, a person without an official second term manages one of the most important police agencies. And some other directors are also out of mandate, such as Draško Milinović at the head of the Communications Regulatory Agency (term expired in 2024), Enes Hašić at the head of the Agency for Development of Higher Education, while some have already received new mandates.

Out of 33 positions for which appointments were made in this term of the Council of Ministers of BiH, six are Bosniaks, 14 Serbs, and 13 Croats. And no, this is not about counting blood cells but about respecting the laws and the Constitution of BiH. Because laws and the Constitution cannot apply to some, but not to Bosniaks.

One of the last appointments was the Director of the Official Gazette of BiH, Dragan Prusina, who has held that position since 2006. However, for Trojka, there was nothing controversial in that case either, just as there was nothing controversial about the usurped position of coordinator for public administration reform.