The Peace Implementation Council (PIC) will hold a session tomorrow to once again consider the appointment of a new High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), after Christian Schmidt resigned from the position in May.
At the session of the PIC Steering Board on June 30, American diplomat Louis Krisok, the First Deputy High Representative and Supervisor for Brčko, was appointed as Acting High Representative. He will remain in this position until the PIC member states reach an agreement on who will be the new High Representative.
At the two previous sessions of the PIC Steering Board, on June 4 and 30, there was no consensus on who would succeed Schmidt, as the United States insisted that the new High Representative should be Italian Antonio Zanardi Landi, who also had the support of his country, while France and the United Kingdom, with the support of Germany, demanded that the new High Representative be French diplomat René Troccaz.
The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, and later the Head of the EU Delegation in BiH, Luigi Soreca, announced that a new High Representative should be elected on July 14 and that Krisok’s appointment is a temporary solution.
“We do not expect this to become a permanent arrangement. There is no change in the EU’s position regarding the mandate of the Office of the High Representative (OHR). This office is not intended as a permanent category, but should move towards its closure,” Soreca stated at the time, adding that the fastest way to close the OHR is accelerated progress on the European path.
Regardless of whether the PIC Steering Board appoints a new High Representative in BiH tomorrow, after Krisok was appointed as Acting High Representative, it was clearly emphasized that he will “fully ensure the institutional continuity of the function, legal certainty regarding all decisions made by previous High Representatives, and will act under the political leadership of the PIC.”
This means that previous decisions of the High Representatives remain in force, including Schmidt’s imposed amendments to the BiH Criminal Code, based on which the former President of Republika Srpska and leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), Milorad Dodik, was legally convicted before the Court of BiH with a ban on holding public office for a period of six years due to non-compliance with the decisions of the High Representative.
The “Bonn Powers” instrument also remains, which gives the High Representative the ability to impose binding laws and decisions in order to overcome political blockades of institutional work and accelerate the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement.
According to a Beta source from the intelligence community in BiH, at a meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, held on June 25 in Antibes, on the French Riviera, an agreement was reached that for the next two years the head of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) will be an Italian, and that he will then be succeeded by a Frenchman, also for a period of two years.
In the meantime, a document has been disclosed that Italy sent to its partners in the PIC, presenting the official vision of Rome regarding the future of the OHR in BiH.
According to the document, a gradual reduction of the OHR is announced, while the “Bonn Powers” are listed as a last resort for the High Representative, in situations when other options have been exhausted.
It is also emphasized that the new High Representative will not annul the decisions of his predecessors, while the duration of the OHR’s mandate will continue to depend on the fulfillment of the “5+2” program, which practically means that the OHR in BiH could remain for years.
The “5+2” program is a list of goals and conditions that the authorities in BiH must fulfill before the OHR is closed and the country fully assumes complete sovereignty.
This program was defined by the PIC Steering Board back in 2008 and includes five key goals and two conditions that BiH must meet.
Among the goals, the key issues are the resolution of state property and the full implementation of the arbitration decision for the Brčko District, while one of the conditions specifies that the OHR will not be closed until the PIC Steering Board gives a positive assessment of the situation in BiH, which implies full compliance with the Dayton Peace Agreement.
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