Bosnian Serb MPs vote to ignore peace envoy’s decisions, laws

Lawmakers in Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic on Wednesday voted to stop publishing an international peace overseer’s decrees and laws in the official gazette, meaning that they would no longer be recognised as official legislation.

The move defies the 1995 Dayton peace accords that ended the Balkan country’s war in the 1990s, under which an international envoy was installed to oversee the implementation of peace.

The Serbs say they do not recognise German former government minister Christian Schmidt, who was appointed in 2021, as the high representative in Bosnia because the U.N. Security Council did not endorse his appointment.

“Today Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have the High Representative. This one here (Schmidt) is not the High Representative and this is the message by Republika Srpska,” Radovan Viskovic, the region’s prime minister, told the parliament. Republika Srpska is one of the political entities that form the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Earlier this week, Schmidt – who has the power to sack officials and impose laws – warned the Serbs will face unspecified consequences if they break the terms of the peace deal by refusing to recognise his acts.

The Dayton peace accords ended nearly four years of war, in which about 100,000 died, by splitting Bosnia into two autonomous regions, the Serb-dominated Serb Republic and the Federation shared by Bosniaks and Croats, linked by a weak central government.

Many analysts see the motion as another step by Bosnian Serb separatist, pro-Russian leader Milorad Dodik towards secession of the Serb Republic from Bosnia, his long declared goal.

Schmidt was appointed by the Peace Implementation Council of key governments and organisations in Bosnia’s peace process, and that appointment was acknowledged in the United Nations but not by Security Council.

Russia and China disputed his appointment in the UN because he was not confirmed by the Security Council but other nations said it was not required.