Thanks to Dodik's appointees: Bosnia and Herzegovina signs agreement with Russian company under sanctions

(Patria) - Exchange of experts, mutual recognition of industrial standards, training programs. All of this is foreseen by the agreement signed by the state institute of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and an agency from Russia that has been sanctioned by Western countries.

It was signed at the end of September this year, in the Russian city of Sochi, on the Black Sea coast. Radio Free Europe (RSE) was recently granted access to the text of the agreement.

In its latest progress report on BiH, the European Commission explicitly criticized the signing of the memorandum with the sanctioned Rosstandart and called on BiH to implement restrictive measures against Moscow.

"BiH must harmonize with the EU's foreign policy," Brussels emphasized.

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), of which BiH is a member, told RSE that "member countries must act in accordance with the Statute and Rules of Procedure," without specifying whether non-compliance with Western sanctions against Rosstandart would have consequences for BiH and its Institute for Standardization.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML), of which BiH is also a member, as well as the Sanctions Department of the European Union's diplomatic service (EEAS), did not respond to RSE's inquiry on the same question by the time of publication.

Nor did the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (U.S. BIS) respond regarding their stance on the agreement between the BiH agency and the sanctioned Russian agency.

The agreement was signed during the session of the "Intergovernmental Russian-Bosnian and Herzegovinian Commission for Trade and Economic Cooperation" in Sochi, and the "BiH delegation" consisted exclusively of representatives from Republika Srpska.

They were led by the BiH Minister of Foreign Trade, Staša Košarac, an appointee of the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) led by Milorad Dodik, who caused an international scandal at the end of November with an SS division helmet. He sent the item by mail to the office of the International High Representative in Sarajevo.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the Director of the Institute for Standardization of BiH, Aleksandar Todorović, and the Director of Russia's Rosstandart, Anton Shalayev, despite calls from Brussels to align BiH's foreign policy with the European Union.

What after the memorandum?

If the cooperation between the Institute for Standardization of BiH and the Russian agency Rosstandart expands to the exchange of money, funds, equipment, technology, joint training in areas related to military or dual-use (civilian-military) products, or the use of laboratories in Russia covered by sanctions, BiH could seriously jeopardize its international relations.

The consequences could be so-called secondary sanctions against BiH, similar to those already imposed by the EU and the US on Russian banks and oil companies, limiting access to funds or suspending cooperation with BiH.

For over a month, the Council of Ministers and the Presidency of BiH have not responded to Radio Free Europe's inquiry about the signing of the memorandum, nor whether and how they can suspend this document.

BiH Minister of Foreign Trade Staša Košarac and Director of the Institute for Standardization of BiH Aleksandar Todorović have not responded to RSE's calls to discuss this issue.

The Russian Embassy in Sarajevo welcomed the signing of the memorandum and the "deepening of cooperation," and announced that a new session of the "Intergovernmental Russian-Bosnian and Herzegovinian Commission" will be held in Bosnia and Herzegovina next year.

What are the possible consequences?

"The signing of the memorandum is indeed a failure to align with EU policy and as such is detrimental to BiH in relation to the EU and BiH's interests in joining as a full member, especially in this situation of opening accession negotiations. Some BiH body should effectively annul this act," Enver Halilović, former rector of the University of Tuzla and former BiH ambassador to Moscow, told Radio Free Europe.

BiH, along with Serbia, is the only Western Balkan country that has not implemented sanctions against Russia due to the opposition of political representatives from Republika Srpska, who advocate for closer ties with Moscow.

This has been repeatedly criticized by Brussels and Washington, with specific mention of SNSD appointees and the party's leader, Milorad Dodik, who has met with Vladimir Putin several times since February 2022 and the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"Russia systematically pursues a policy of obstructing the Euro-Atlantic integration of Balkan countries, including BiH. Dodik personally and the leadership of Republika Srpska are instruments in the hands of Russian policy. What Dodik's ministers have done [signing the Memorandum] fits perfectly into this Russian strategy," Božidar Kovačević, former Croatian ambassador to Moscow, told RSE.

Due to its connections with the military-industrial complex, the EU, US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Japan, among others, have imposed sanctions on Rosstandart following Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

Brussels has included Rosstandart on the list of entities that "directly support the Russian military and military industry," while the U.S. Department of Commerce has granted this agency the status of an entity with the strictest export control regime for technology and expert cooperation.

The goal of the sanctions, as stated, is to limit the operations not only of companies producing weapons but also of those that enable the functioning of the military industry.

The memorandum is a political-technical document that can be described as a legal "grey area" and a "symbolic political act".

It is not an international agreement that would specify contractual obligations, and several elements that were included in the memorandum signed in 2014 have been removed from the new document, including a clause on the obligation to protect confidential data.

International agreements must be adopted by the Presidency of BiH and the state Parliament.