When I recently wrote for this column about what Croatia would do regarding the serious state crisis and Milorad Dodik's general action to prevent his own imprisonment and, above all, from political life, the matter, or rather the crisis, was just beginning. And no matter how much it may seem today that I was wrong about some things, and the context has changed considerably in the meantime, that is not exactly the case. In other words, everything I wrote then is still valid now. And I wrote that Croatia would try to use the opportunity to resolve the issue of the Election Law, or the election of members of the Presidency, on the one hand, but that it would not support Dodik's secessionist actions on the other. I also wrote about the cynical policy of Dragan Čović, who would simply try to protect Milorad Dodik as long as possible, but that he would not go beyond a certain limit.
The arrival of Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković at the Mostar Economic Fair, along with all the statements he made on these topics a few days earlier, as well as in Mostar, did not literally change anything in what I wrote. Moreover, it is indicative that neither Vučić nor Dodik were at the Fair this year.
The fact that the public in Sarajevo may have expected that Croatia would also impose sanctions on Milorad Dodik, in the way that Austria and Germany did, is a completely different topic and was realistic to expect to the extent that it was realistic to expect that the troika would simply vote for the HDZ's proposal for the Election Law.
The biggest problem for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the current political moment and with Dodik's violation of the law and the Constitution lies in the fact that the previous geopolitical context has fundamentally changed. This change has led to the withdrawal of the previous American policy towards the region, for which it is enough to see who the new US ambassador to Serbia is. As a result, the High Representative has been metaphorically left adrift and without any real and unified international support. This is due to the combination of this fact, together with another consequence of the new geopolitical moment, which is that there is simply no longer any real common European policy. Both towards Bosnia and Herzegovina and towards the region as a whole.
If we leave aside all the tragic failures and omissions that the European Union had towards the Yugoslav region and the situation during the war, and look only at the post-war period, it is difficult to find a more shameful policy than the one it is currently pursuing towards the Vučić regime and the cynicism with which it is turning its back on the student and general national uprising in Serbia.
It is clear, therefore, that there is no single European vision for the future of the region, except perhaps that Montenegro would soon join the European Union, which would certainly be good news.
Therefore, in a situation where there is no such unified policy, it is unrealistic to expect that the introduction of sanctions against Dodik by Austria and Germany through diplomatic pressure will lead to Croatia doing the same, and then other European Union countries, with the exception of Hungary.
If there really were a unified foreign policy for the European Union today, that would probably happen, but no one should get carried away with the idea that Andrej Plenković and Croatia are under any pressure in that direction. Because they are not. Realistically, today each country conducts its own policy, both towards Ukraine and Serbia or the Western Balkans as a whole.
After all, we need not go any further than the fact that High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas, who was just in Sarajevo, was almost stripped of any operational powers and that all her ideas regarding Ukraine were undermined, leaving her only to deal with our region. And even there, she will not have the opportunity to formulate policy herself.
Unfortunately or fortunately, Bosnia and Herzegovina, its people and citizens, its politicians, and its state institutions are left to their own devices. And that should be clear to everyone by now.
The European Union will certainly not allow any armed conflict or the disintegration of the country, but that's more or less it. We will have to do everything else ourselves, and that won't work in a way where everyone looks only at themselves and their own interests.
Bonus video:
