NEGOTIATIONS HAVE BEGUN Schmidt should leave by the end of the year: Croatia insists that the OHR change the Election Law in favor of the HDZ

Part of the international community has begun negotiations regarding the removal of Christian Schmidt from the position of High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Istraga.ba has learned from multiple diplomatic sources.

If the plan, in which the United States is also involved, is realized, Schmidt should leave by the end of this year. At the same time, as we learn, discussions are also being held about his successor who would be acceptable to all member states of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC).

“At this moment, there are also discussions about moving the Office of the High Representative from Sarajevo to Geneva,” Istraga’s sources said.

At the same time, while discussions about Christian Schmidt's dismissal are ongoing, officials from Zagreb are trying to persuade the current High Representative to conclude his mandate by imposing provisions of the BiH Election Law that would allow the HDZ BiH to always elect its member of the Presidency of BiH.

We remind you that Christian Schmidt officially took over the mandate of High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina on August 2, 2021. Authorities from Republika Srpska have challenged his legality from the beginning, but all decisions he made have also been applied in that entity.

Parallel to the appointment of Christian Schmidt as High Representative, the Russian Federation suspended funding for the OHR.

“In July 2021, the Russian Federation announced that it would no longer participate in the meetings of the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), and in February 2022, it informed the Office of the High Representative (OHR) that it was suspending its participation in the financing of the OHR,” the OHR announced in April 2022.

According to Istraga’s information, the US Embassy also delayed payments of tranches for the financing of the Office of the High Representative this year. The OHR was financed by funds approved by the European Union (47.68 percent), the United States (22 percent), Japan (10 percent), the United Kingdom (6.69 percent), Canada (3.03 percent), the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (2.5 percent), Russia (1.2 percent), others (6.9 percent).

Christian Schmidt's mandate has been marked by several controversial decisions. However, the most important one was when, with prior agreement with Zagreb, the High Representative suspended the Constitution of the Federation of BiH for one day in order to appoint the current composition of the Government of the Federation of BiH without the signature of the Bosniak Vice-President of the Federation of BiH. Several months earlier, on election night 2022, he changed the Constitution of the Federation of BiH and the Election Law of BiH in favor of HDZ BiH. Immediately before the imposition, in September 2022, the Prime Minister of Croatia, Andrej Plenković, admitted that the Government of the Republic of Croatia was directly involved in negotiations with High Representative Christian Schmidt on changes to the Election Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“We talked with High Representative Schmidt for months, thoroughly and discreetly. When the president got involved in that process and insulted Schmidt, then his enthusiasm to correct the injustices towards Croats in BiH probably waned a bit,” the official Twitter profile of the Croatian government quoted Prime Minister Andrej Plenković.

After Schmidt amended the Constitution of the FBiH and the Election Law of BiH, Plenković, in an interview for Večernji list, said that “The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schmidt prepared and implemented solutions in favor of Croats.”

Christian Schmidt is the recipient of a Croatian decoration – the Order of Ante Starčević.

“Based on the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia and the Law on Decorations and Awards of the Republic of Croatia, and at the proposal of the State Commission for Decorations and Awards, the President of the Republic of Croatia made a Decision to award the Order of Ante Starčević for special contribution to the establishment and building of a sovereign Croatian state and the promotion of foreign policy interests of the Republic of Croatia in the Federal Republic of Germany and in the world, Mr. Christian Schmidt is decorated,” Andrej Plenković read from a paper before handing the award to this German politician in January 2020.

This decoration was formally awarded in 2013 when then-President Ivo Josipović signed a decree by which he awarded CSU politicians Christian Schmidt and Harmut Koschyk the “Order of Ante Starčević”.

Only seven years later was the decoration officially presented, and the German candidate for High Representative for BiH formally “joined the ranks” with war criminal Jadranko Prlić.