SARAJEVO (Reuters) – The German government has shut down four infrastructure projects in Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic over the secessionist aims of its President Milorad Dodik, the German embassy in Bosnia said in a statement on Wednesday.
The projects, worth a combined 105 million euros ($115 million), were suspended in April 2022 after Dodik moved to pull the region out of state institutions, triggering Bosnia’s gravest political crisis since its 1990s war.
In June, the region’s parliament voted to conditionally suspend the rulings of Bosnia’s constitutional court and decisions by a German ex-minister who acts as international peace envoy in Bosnia, triggering U.S. sanctions against senior Bosnian Serb officials the following month.
“The withdrawal of secessionist measures requested by the German government has not occurred,” the embassy said in the statement. “Instead, (Dodik)… and the government have continued to escalate political crisis.”
For that reason, the suspended projects – two relating to revamping a hydro-power plant, building a wind park and a waste waters management programme – would not resume, it said.
The European Union has also repeatedly warned Dodik to halt his secessionist rhetoric and moves undermining the Bosnian state, but has held back from imposing sanctions.
Dodik has accused Washington of being biased against Serbs.
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(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; editing by John Stonestreet)
