The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, accused the United States Embassy in Sarajevo on Tuesday of “causing the crisis” in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
“Where, how, and since when is it written anywhere that property belongs to central authorities and not to entities?” Vučić wrote on his Instagram account.
With this, he referred to the issue from May 2023, when the U.S. stated that the property of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina could be resolved by state law, not by entity law.
He asked his American partners, as he called them, to explain how they “came to the conclusion and based on which act, that property belongs to the central authorities and not to the entities, as written in the Dayton Agreement.”
Vučić added that for this reason, among others, they “participated in causing the crisis in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
The entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska, has continuously attempted to implement a property law aimed at transferring state property of Bosnia to Republika Srpska, despite it being unconstitutional.
According to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, state property includes movable and immovable items that serve the exercise of power and can also include public goods (rivers, forests, natural resources, transportation infrastructure, etc.).
State properties in Bosnia and Herzegovina have not been available since 2005, when the then-high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, imposed the Law on the Temporary Prohibition of Disposal of State Property. It remains in effect until the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopts a new decision on the disposal of property at the state level.
In his Instagram post, Vučić referred to provisions of the Dayton Agreement, which he said “stipulated that all state functions and powers not expressly assigned to the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina would belong to the entities.”
Vučić had announced a day earlier that he would respond to the U.S. Embassy’s criticism in Sarajevo regarding the so-called All-Serb Assembly, held in Belgrade on June 8. However, in the announcement, he did not comment on the U.S. Embassy’s assessment of the assembly’s conclusions.
The “All-Serb Assembly” was held on June 8 in Belgrade, with the participation of representatives from the Government of Serbia and the Serb entity, Republika Srpska.
It was organized under the slogan “One People, One Assembly – Serbia and Srpska” and produced the so-called Declaration for the Protection of National and Political Rights and the Common Future of the Serbian People.
