Senate Hearing Blames Dodik for Bosnia’s Stalemate

Speakers at the US Senate's subcommittee on Europe and regional-security cooperation on Wednesday blamed Bosnian Serb supremo Milorad Dodik for the current stalemate in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was preventing the formation of a new state government and blocking the NATO integration process.

At the subcommittee hearing, entitled "Success and Unfinished Business in the Western Balkans", two separate panels heard from US Western Balkan envoy Matthew Palmer, Janusz Bugajski, from the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis, CEPA, and from Majda Ruge, from Johns Hopkins University, among others.

A year after the last elections in Bosnia, the country still has not formed a central government, mainly because the leaders of the largest parties cannot agree on whether the country should closen ties to NATO by submitting an Annual National Program, ANP.

Most participants in the debate cited Dodik, now the Serbian member of the Bosnian tripartite presidency, as the main obstacle to the country's progress.

"We are now working on a compromise to form a Bosnian Council of Ministers [state government]. We are trying to pressure the country to send the ANP. But the main obstacle is Milorad Dodik, blocking all that would lead to progress," Palmer said.

Palmer accused Dodik of being more concerned about his position in the Serb-led entity of Bosnia, Republika Srpska, than about the position of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole.

US analyst Bugajski said the US should consider appointing a special representative to focus on the situation in Bosnia. "Bosnia-Herzegovina has no effective central government, the Serb entity persistently threatens to secede, Croatian nationalists...