Smearing BiH and ignoring EU values - it's not a lapsus, it's Croatian foreign policy

By: Amina Corbo Zeco

The Croatian president Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic continues to meddle in Bosnian internal affairs.

And so does her party colleague Andrej Plenkovic. They treat BiH as one of Croatia's provinces, therefore, they often refer to it in the national media.

Let's recall recent Plenkovic's scandalous statement: 'I hope that what I read in today's media goes in the right direction as regards the dialogue between the political parties, HDZ BiH and SDA above all, concerning the changes to the Election law. To work out the anomalies and prevent the situations in which the Croats get outvoted in the elections for the key representative bodies.'

The government of the Republic of Croatia wants to determine the election rules in BiH, openly hoping that HDZ and SDA will neutralize Zeljko Komsic?!

It is ridiculous to present the voters' choice of Zeljko Komsic as some sign of growing Islamist tendencies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and such stance is not welcome in the European political circles – au contraire, electing Komsic has signaled a tendency of growth and the victory of civic option. However, let us remind ourselves of a local saying... that a lie spoken 100 times becomes a truth.

That's why the truth should be spoken all the time – the defeat of Dragan Covic at the elections for the member of Presidency BiH cannot be the indicator that Bosnian Croats are deprived of rights, for a simple reason – Covic has not lost the elections because the Bosniaks voted for Komsic but because the Croats did not vote for Covic. That's why we have to oppose this destructive actions against our country.

Although an EU member state, Croatia seems to uphold values that are not intrinsic to the EU – discrimination, strengthening of 'national' but in a wrong direction. Croatia today represents one of the leading countries as regards the rise of nationalism and fascism. As much as Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic tries to convince the local and international public that it is not being the case, she is obviously failing. On the contrary, her statements only make it worse. Presenting the program of her election campaign, she stated that she would fight the implementation of the verdicts by the European Court of Human Rights in BiH.

She also promised to fight for preservation of the political and cultural identity of the Croats in BiH as a constituent nation with equality of rights.

At the same time, in the case 'Zornic', she requested the European Court for Human Rights to reject the 'constituent nation' principle. One can conclude that the Croatian president not only interferes in the internal affairs of BiH, she also calls upon the principles entirely opposite to the European ones, and which by the European court verdicts have to be rejected.

However, it is not the first time that Croatia overtly throws away the European values. Memories are still fresh. Not so long ago, it was said that there was no radical nationalism in Croatia.

However, the HDZ members of European parliament voted against the Report on Hungary which said that Hungary violated basic European principles.

Before the parliament session which condemned Hungarian politics and that of its leader Viktor Orban, the European Commission condemned the rise of radical right in Poland. European media have written for a while now that, besides Poland and Hungary, Croatia has the strongest radical right wing.

However, Macron's recent statement about BiH only gave wings to Grabar Kitarovic and Plenkovic. Equally worrisome is the absence of any action by BH officials, who have chosen not to react to the most recent statements by Grabar Kitarovic and Plenkovic.  

There have been so many below the belt hits by Croatia to BiH that any post factum explanations about 'poor interpretation' or a 'lapsus' cease to make sense.

What the Croatian president mentions is a mere foreign policy of Croatia, which continues aimed at smearing Bosnia and Herzegovina before Europe.