SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Lawmakers in Bosnia’s Serb Republic regional parliament on Wednesday ordered Serb representatives in state institutions to block decision-making and reform laws needed for the Balkan country’s integration into the European Union.
An emergency session of parliament was called on Tuesday evening to discuss a “degradation of a legal system” in relation to the ongoing trial of the region’s president Milorad Dodik at Bosnia’s state court.
Dodik, a Serb separatist leader, is being tried for defying decisions by the international High Representative which oversees peace in the country under the 1995 Dayton Accords which ended 3-1/2 years of ethnic war.
The MPs said the trial was “politically mounted”, based on the “illegal decisions” of current envoy Christian Schmidt and of the state court and prosecution which they regard as unconstitutional because they were set up by the peace envoy and not by the Dayton treaty.
Pro-Russian Dodik has tried hard to separate his Serb-dominated region from Bosnia in recent years but halted the process after the start of the war in Ukraine.
Under the Dayton treaty, Bosnia was split into two autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and a Federation dominated by Croats and Bosniaks linked via a weak central government. That secured peace but left Bosnia dysfunctional as a state.
After years of political obstructions to joining the EU, Bosnia received a boost last year when EU leaders agreed to open negotiations once it had reached the necessary compliance with membership criteria.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Ed Osmond)
