Trojka's European Performance: Reform Agenda - When there was a will, there was a way

By: A. Čorbo-Zećo

Last week, the Council of Ministers of BiH adopted the draft Reform Agenda, a document that opens the door to funds from the European Union's Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, without fanfare or dramatic statements. This actually confirmed what opposition cantonal prime ministers had been pointing out for months: that the decision was solely in the hands of the state level, not within the jurisdiction of the cantons.

However, instead of doing what they have now quietly done, a year late, the Trojka parties (SDP, NiP, and Naša stranka) launched an entire blame campaign in previous months directed at the SDA cantonal prime ministers. Their conditional agreements were presented as blockades, even though it is constitutionally clear that cantons do not have the decisive word in this matter.

As early as August 2024, Prime Minister of Zenica-Doboj Canton, Nezir Pivić, suggested, "If you think you are right, make the decision yourselves, without a working group." But that was not politically expedient at the time.

"They are responsible for that issue. If they want to resolve that problem further and if they believe they are right, let them change the decision on forming a working group. Let them make their own decision, outside of the working group," Pivić stated then.

Conversely, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of Narod i Pravda, Elmedin Konaković, instead of working, talked. In his statement, he claimed that Bakir Izetbegović, along with his associates from SDA, DF, and SBiH, had caused enormous damage to every citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, taking "600 KM from their pockets, and much more in the long term."

"In the document we were supposed to send to Brussels, spanning 170 pages, the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina is mentioned more than 1330 times. Eight times on each page, and SDA, DF, and SBiH claim that the term 'state' was removed, seeking an alibi for the catastrophe they caused," Konaković said in July last year.

Now he's not holding press conferences!? He's not mentioning Izetbegović, and he didn't have to before either.

Today, a year later, under pressure of time and European deadlines, Trojka has effectively suspended the Coordination Mechanism, precisely the mechanism they previously invoked themselves when they needed to share blame. The document has been adopted. No one is mentioning cantons anymore. There is no hysteria.

And what have we learned? That the whole story about the Growth Plan was more of a political spin than a real institutional obstacle. That it was a matter of will, not possibility. And that those who swear most fervently by the European path often use it merely as a bargaining chip in domestic political disputes.

Time has been lost. Millions from EU funds have been delayed. But political responsibility, as usual in BiH, has not caught up with anyone.