President Milanović: Bosnia and Herzegovina must join the EU as a state in which Croats will be a constituent and equal people
The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović welcomes the announcement of the opening of European Union accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Accession of BiH to the EU is important for Croatia for many reasons, the main one being that BiH’s membership in the EU is at the same time a strategic, national and security issue for Croatia because the Croatian people live in BiH, Croatia shares the longest land border with BiH, and Croatia and BiH are deeply connected friendly states in terms of history, culture and the economy.
In recent years, President Milanović has persistently advocated granting candidate status to BiH and beginning negotiations with BiH on membership, moreover he is confident that BiH deserved it earlier. And he has also advocated and requested from the Government of the Republic of Croatia – which represents Croatia in EU institutions – for those same institutions to guarantee to the Croatian people in BiH all the rights they should have as a constituent and equal people in BiH. That includes the right to the legitimate representation of Croats in all BiH state bodies, including the right of Croats in BiH to elect their member in the Presidency of BiH.
However, Croats in BiH are entering negotiations with the EU without the right to elect their representative in the highest state institution because the election law has not been amended to this day. Moreover, negotiations are being entered into with the clear intention of EU bureaucrats to make Bosnia and Herzegovina a so-called civic state which will care about the rights of the constituent peoples even less than now. This is unacceptable and dangerous for the Croats in BiH as well as for Croatia, because it is expected that during the negotiating process BiH authorities will be required to make additional concessions and compromises.
In light of this, the statement of Prime Minister Andrej Plenković whereby the opening of EU accession talks with Bosnia and Herzegovina is “the most important foreign policy achievement in this Government’s term” is the culmination of his ingratiating himself with Brussels bureaucrats. This indeed may be a success for his political career as he fully embraced Brussels’ notion of the Croats’ rights in BiH. But, for the Croats in BiH, “this most important foreign policy achievement in this Government’s term” paves the way to political hell.
Plenković now brags that the partners in Brussels heard his messages related to Bosnia and Herzegovina – portraying himself to be greater than Ursula von der Leyen – although all these years we never heard him say even once in Brussels – no, not until the rights of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina are guaranteed! Not at even one European Council session or at a meeting with his Brussels partners did Plenković ever resort to the right that each sovereign EU member state has and uses. When Croatia was denied participation in the EU mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina or when the High Representative for Foreign Affairs lied about Croatia’s rights as an EU member, or when his European partners legalized the illegal member of the BiH Presidency – Plenković never uttered one word.
Instead of at least once making use of Croatia’s position as a full-fledged member of the EU when he could and should have to protect the interests of the Croats in BiH or Croatia’s national interests, Plenković in a tsunami of pre-electoral self-praise now presents as his success the difficult and uncertain fate of the Croatian people in BiH. At the same time, he pretends to ignore that these very Brussels partners will further attack the rights of Croats in BiH, because for them only a civil BiH is good enough for BiH to be a member of the EU.
The view of President Milanović is the following: Bosnia and Herzegovina must join the EU as a state in which Croats will be a constituent and equal people that will elect their own representatives in state bodies, including a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And as a full-fledged member of the European Union, Croatia must make use of all instruments – as do other member states to protect their interests – to ensure that the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina enjoy such status and thus protect both the BiH Croats and its own national interests.