Efforts to split off
Diplomat Schmidt: There is a dangerous escalation in Bosnia
Ex-Federal Minister Christian Schmidt is currently a diplomat in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Photo: Britta Pedersen / dpa
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Christian Schmidt was Federal Minister for Agriculture in the penultimate legislative period. Today he works as a diplomat in the Balkans – and warns of an escalation.
In view of the secession efforts in the Bosnian Serb Republic, the top representative of the international community in Sarajevo, Christian Schmidt, warns of a dangerous escalation.
“Bosnia-Herzegovina is facing its most serious existential threat of the post-war period,” wrote the German diplomat and former agriculture minister in his most recent report to the United Nations. The document was available to the German Press Agency.
The report blames Milorad Dodik for the escalation. The nationalist is currently a Serbian member of the three-person state presidency. Dodik is preparing the creation of its own army for the Serb republic and will in fact dissolve the army of the state as a whole. In addition, the Bosnian Serb politician is already blocking state institutions such as the presidency and parliament through his boycott. If the international community continues to accept this policy, the Serbian Republic will “remove itself from the constitutional order of Bosnia” and undermine the Dayton Peace Treaty, Schmidt wrote in the report.
In 1995, the Dayton Agreement ended the bloody three-year war in Bosnia that the leadership of the time in Serbia had started. Among other things, it provided for the creation of two semi-autonomous parts of the country, the Bosnian-Croatian Federation and the Serbian Republic. In addition, it created the office of the High Representative, which is supposed to monitor compliance with the peace treaty. The CSU politician Schmidt has been in office since the beginning of August.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council unanimously authorized the ongoing EU mission for a further twelve months on Wednesday. Before that, however, there was a dispute about Schmidt’s role as High Representative – Russia argues that the position is no longer needed and even wanted to abolish it in the end. Under threat of a veto for the extension of the EU mission, Moscow prevented Schmidt from briefing the most powerful UN body in New York on Wednesday on the basis of his report on the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina.