Thanks to a good research text in Sarajevo Releases, the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina learned a few days ago how serious a problem their country has with Montenegro regarding the use of the waters of the River Trebišnjica and Lake Bileć. This, however, should not surprise anyone, because both local and local politicians have been repeating for years that there are no unresolved issues between the two countries, so nothing would have been known about this problem even in Montenegro if a few independent media and activists had not taken an interest in it.
The author of the mentioned analytical text Alen Šarenkapa skilfully introduces the reader to what it is all about, citing similar examples of border disputes that BiH has with other neighbors.
"For many years in Bosnia and Herzegovina, people have been talking about how Serbia owes us a large amount, even five billion euros are mentioned, due to the use of water from Zvornik and Lake Perućac for the needs of the Zvornik and Bajina Bašta hydroelectric plants. Bosnia and Herzegovina is demanding money due to the fact that Serbia keeps all the produced electricity for itself, and in addition does not pay compensation for submerged land to the municipalities of Zvornik, Višegrad, Srebrenica and Rogatica, in whose areas these lakes are located.
It is also said that Croatia does not pay compensation for submerged land to the municipalities of Livno and Tomislavgrad due to the Buško lake reservoir, from which it uses water for the needs of the Orlovac hydroelectric plant. And in this case, we are talking about millions of euros."
After this introduction, it was not difficult for the author of the text to explain that the same thing that Bosnia and Herzegovina is demanding from Serbia because of the Zvornik and Bajina Bašta hydropower plants, Montenegro is rightly demanding from Bosnia and Herzegovina because of the Trebišnjica hydroelectric power plants. A total of four of these were built in the early seventies after the Grančarevo dam was installed on Trebišnjica, and the artificial Bilećko lake was created in front of it in an area covering 11,2 km of the common border of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. Two hydropower plants were built near the dam in Trebinje (now Republika Srpska), and the other two in Čapljina (now Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Dubrovnik (Croatia), which bring water from Bileć Lake through artificial canals made by Bosnia and Herzegovina.
For the water it received through those channels, Croatia originally supplied 78% of the electricity produced from the Dubrovnik hydroelectric power plant to Elektroprivreda BiH, but after the dissolution of the joint state, it unilaterally decided to give only 50% of that energy to Elektroprivreda Republika Srpska. Although a significant part of the waters of Trebišnjica and Lake Bileć belongs to Montenegro (about 24% of the volume of the lake according to the estimate of the University of Montenegro), our country has not received compensation for it for more than 30 years, either from Croatia or from (the entity) BiH. By the way, he has the right to it according to all international conventions and customary law, as well as the federal law of the former SFR Yugoslavia, according to which this compensation was regularly paid to the neighboring municipality of Nikšić from 1971 until the outbreak of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.
Therefore, the use of surface and underground waters of the transboundary basin of the Trebišnjica River and the Bileć Lake has been a highly disputed issue for decades, not only between Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also between Croatia and Croatia. In the meantime, the Montenegrin authorities tried several times, albeit softly and without insistence, but failed to start discussions with the neighbors about fair compensation for previously used and unpaid water, as well as about the involvement of Montenegro in the management of this watershed. The Council of Ministers of BiH once proposed to the former state of Serbia and Montenegro in 2005 the creation of a commission for the management of the Trebišnjica river basin, but after that it did not send an invitation to negotiate the details.
By the way, all three mentioned states that share this watercourse are obliged to form such interstate commissions in order to jointly manage it and resolve possible mutual disputes, since they are signatories to the UN Convention on Water from 1992.obliged to cooperate through bilateral or multilateral agreements or other arrangements and related joint bodies with countries that share transboundary waters".
One such bilateral commission was formed by the Governments of Montenegro and Croatia in 2007 with the Agreement on mutual relations in the field of water management, including the waters of the Trebišnjica basin. By Article 12 of that agreement, the signatories undertook to "endeavor to improve cooperation with other countries, especially with neighboring countries, in a coordinated manner, and will jointly regulate this cooperation, when necessary, in the form of an agreement".
Unfortunately, seventeen years later, such cooperation and a corresponding trilateral commission, which would include neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina in addition to Montenegro and Croatia, for the purpose of joint management of the Trebišnjica and Bilečki lake basins, has not been established. All those years, Croatia only cooperated bilaterally with BiH and its two entities through "Commission for Water Management of the Republic of Croatia and BiH and its Subcommission for the Adriatic Basin", which coordinates the preparation and implementation of joint water management plans for Trebišnjica and Lake Bilećko. These commissions had generous technical assistance from the World Bank and GEF and support for extensive diagnostic field research in the period 2008-2015, totaling USD 21,27 million.
Montenegro was not invited to join the work of that intergovernmental body, i.e. of its Subcommission for the Adriatic Basin, although it had the right to do so according to the mentioned UN Water Convention from 1992 and the subsequently adopted UN Watercourses Convention from 1997, Article 4(1) of which reads: "each watercourse state has the right to participate in negotiations and to become a party to any watercourse agreement applicable to the entire international watercourse, as well as to participate in all relevant consultations".
Croatia, as an EU member state, was obliged to introduce Montenegro into the mentioned Subcommission for the Adriatic Basin, or to form a special trilateral with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro only for the Trebišnjica basin, but apparently it did not make enough efforts to do so. This was required by Article 3 point 5 of the Framework EU Water Directive, which reads: "When the water area extends outside the territory of the EU, the concerned Member State or Member States shall endeavor to establish appropriate coordination with the relevant non-member states, with the aim of achieving the objectives of this Directive in the entire river area".
Because of this attitude of neighbors and their unwillingness to cooperate with our country, Montenegro has suffered enormous financial damage in the past three decades. Of course, this did not happen by chance, there was clearly not enough water for all appetites, and due to climate change, it will be even less. In addition, current consumers of water would not only retain, but also significantly increase their existing shares in its use. All these consumers have ambitious development plans and projects for the construction of new large hydropower plants in both BiH entities and Dubrovnik, as well as plans to expand irrigation areas, so they need additional amounts of water.
Due to such sharply conflicting interests, our neighbors are evidently in no hurry to initiate the formation of any new commission with Montenegro. To make matters more complicated, it is practically impossible to reach an agreement with Bosnia and Herzegovina because the Republika Srpska does not recognize its jurisdiction over the border waters and expects to be treated as a sovereign state that can conclude international agreements with its neighbors without the consent of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, this is not an acceptable framework for negotiations for Montenegro, as a member of the UN and a candidate for EU membership. The leadership of the Republika Srpska does not give up its position at the cost of the dissolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so no attempts at arbitration would help to solve the problem in the foreseeable future.
That negotiations on fair compensation for Montenegro will not go far even after the recent initiative of the President of the Assembly launched in a recent meeting with political partners from Republika Srpska, is clearly evidenced by the answer of the director of Elektroprivreda RS Luka Petrović to a journalist's question Releases will he settle the debt to Montenegro? He said that we should turn to the future and talk about the construction of the Buk Bijela hydroelectric plant on the Drina!
Therefore, the conclusion is not difficult to draw - it is time to formally tell the neighbors that the deadline for agreement has expired or will soon expire, and that Montenegro is forced to ask the International Court of Justice for support in resolving the dispute with them regarding the use of its resources in Rijeka Trebišnjica and Bilećko Lake. This is, by all accounts, the only remaining way for Montenegro to fight for a fair compensation for previously used and unpaid water, as well as the right to jointly manage this watercourse together with Croatia and BiH in the future.
The author is an economic analyst
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