Or how many deceptions and lies are we ready to swallow on a path that supposedly “has no alternative” for us?!
From its very beginning, the European Union has been a chosen club. Industrially developed countries, which in the modern narrative is equated with better, more democratic. As Borrell himself, the EU’s head of diplomacy, once said: the EU is like an orderly garden on one side and the rest of the “wild, unordered world” on the other. Although this statement has been explained and defended without much effort, it still boils down to just such a division of Europe. At least from the corner of its western part. Whereby the former are not disgusted with the savages if they can serve their purposes. What happened on Thursday, December 14, 2023, at the meeting of the European Council and showed by making the decision to open negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova.
Only Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, did not attend the vote on this decision. The only voice of reason and sense of reality, the only element of honesty in the EU regarding many issues that plague Europe and the world.
Twenty years since the Thessaloniki summit, twenty years of deception and promises, BiH has moved only a little from where it was. A little in terms of acceptance by the EU, but a lot in terms of the situation and arrangement from the war nineties until today. And without a doubt, the progress would have been even greater if there had been no interference from the outside, subterfuges that hindered any agreement between the parties in BiH. As if it were not enough that BiH as a society exists in a state of deep divisions, foreign governors came to us, accidentally or intentionally, most often from the same EU, which can’t wait to welcome us into its club, and spoiled every internal agreement and understanding.
While Serbs and Republika Srpska are the only one blamed for the Stagnation of BiH on the road to the EU, Serbs and Republika Srpska are actually the only ones doing everything to make positive progress. Always the first at the table for discussions, with clear positions, without hidden motives, with a clear political and any other message. But, nevertheless, always blamed by everyone.
The others in BiH, primarily Bosnian Muslims, except for their mouths full of empty talk, rarely bring to the same table anything constructive, except for promises and deception. Sounds familiar?!
Although membership in the EU is the only political and economic goal that all leaders, all parties and both entities agree on in BiH, citizens have been saying for a long time that there is nothing to gain from the membership! Not because BiH can’t or won’t or isn’t able to, but because the EU doesn’t want us. Or at least it doesn’t want BiH as it is now. And since it also doesn’t want to “leave” us to others, it follows a scenario that has been making our lives miserable for months and in which the main actor Christian Schmidt, in the role of the High Representative, shapes destiny. He tailors BiH according to the “cut” and measures made by Brussels and those who rule Brussels. Without Republika Srpska. Hence the seizure of property, the seizure of jurisdiction, the contrived, almost Kafkaesque court processes, the withholding of money for development projects (because why, anyway, build something that you have already begun to tear down?). It is indicative that political Sarajevo did not raise its voice or ask for an explanation of the decision for which there was no consensus within the EU – to grant candidate status to a country that is at war overnight, and then make a decision to open negotiations, and to an entire region that is geographically and geopolitically Europe, to offer… again a condition, and what else?
Perhaps the problem of the Western Balkans, including BiH, actually is the fact that we are too close to the EU, and Brussels is lulled by the fact that we have nowhere else to go.
There can be honesty in politics, but it is rarely true. It is most common at small-format meetings, behind closed doors, when they admit – including the Serbs and Republika Srpska – that you are right, but that they, well, can’t…
On several occasions, the EU was also honest towards BiH, but in the sea of platitudes on which thousands of European officials built their careers and acquired wealth that they could rarely acquire anywhere, except by serving in BiH, this sincerity was thinned to the point of cracking. And our hope has thinned out from trying to fulfil all the given conditions and achieve all the set standards.
The new EU elections in 2024 will hopefully bring a new generation of politicians with more integrity and courage. And more honesty. Not towards BiH, but towards the EU, and the situation in Europe as a whole. When the EU is able to admit some things to itself, including its own mistakes, maybe there will be a place for the Western Balkans and BiH, and thus also for the Republika Srpska. And that the new EU should really be tailored to everyone and for everyone. Both those who are in it and those who are waiting to join it, as equal partners.
It remains for us Serbs to remain firm in times of challenges and turbulence, to remain firm in our positions, but always for discussion and agreement, as before. Republika Srpska and everything related to its preservation in full capacity is our red line from which we do not deviate. Everything is subordinated to that goal and there is no negotiation about it.
Author: Ana Trišić Babić, Advisor to the President of Republika Srpska
The Srpska Times
