Weber for NAP: Public and some parties' resistance prevented a dirty deal in Neum

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Given what we have on the table for the past year, every round of negotiations that does not lead to a dirty deal is a good round of negotiations, and I am happy that such a deal did not happen, said Bodo Weber, political scientist, analyst, and associate of the Policy for Democracy in Europe Center from Berlin, in a statement to the Patria agency.

"A square circle has been made to satisfy Dragan Čović first and foremost, with simulations that it is in the spirit and letter of the European Court of Human Rights rulings and European values. It seems that this attempt failed because for the first time we saw resistance through the non-participation of SDP BiH, DF, and Naša stranka, but also probably because a position was not found that parties from Sarajevo, which participated in Neum, primarily SDA, would dare to agree to," Weber believes.

This, in his opinion, shows that the number of political actors and the public in BiH, as well as within the EU, who have realized that these are negotiations that are neither in the spirit, nor in the letter, nor in accordance with the values of the EU and the US, even though they are led by their representatives, is growing.

"Citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina should be optimistic that an agreement will not be reached on this model of satisfying Čović. It is no coincidence that Matthew Palmer has the highest level of optimism and that he is the angriest about everything, because he tied his career to electoral reform and hoped for a career leap at the end of the negotiations because his mandate expires in the coming months. Palmer, along with Čović, was in the biggest hurry to reach an agreement. The fact that Čović is no longer optimistic gives the best assessment that there will be no agreement from these negotiations," Weber points out.

He believes that the negotiations have been increasingly complicated since the fall of last year.

"Čović hoped in July two years ago that the election law would be reformed, after the signing of the dirty Mostar agreement, which satisfied him for the first time and introduced the concept of legitimate political representation for the first time, which had been a red line for the West until then," Weber adds.

When asked if he expects a blockade of the elections and whether the international community can prevent it, Weber tells Patria: "It is clear that BiH entered 2022 with two threats to its existence. One threat is from the direction of a possible dirty deal on changes to the election legislation and satisfying Čović, and from another direction, an agreement on state military property and the abolition of Inzko's law prohibiting the denial of genocide. From that direction, the threat seems to be decreasing, but we have another scenario of the disintegration of BiH by Dodik and the leadership of RS, and another threat is that Dodik and Čović will prevent the elections from being held in October."

"I believe that the international community will muster the strength to prevent all these threats, and we have already seen statements that the General Elections in October will be held at all costs. This was recently stated by the High Representative Christian Schmidt. I am optimistic that the international community will be more decisive than before in preventing the blockade of the elections," Weber concluded in his conversation with Patria.

We remind you that another round of negotiations on electoral legislation and amendments to the BiH Constitution concluded today in Neum, and an agreement was not reached.

According to the statements of the actors, positions were partially brought closer, but there was no progress on key substantive issues. The leaders of the parties that participated in the negotiations announced new ones, this time without mediation.