EU Calls Republika Srpska Law On ‘Foreign Agents’ A ‘Backwards Step’

The European Union has condemned the passage of a Russia-style “foreign-agents” law by the Republika Srpska, accusing authorities in the Bosnian Serb entity of undermining “the constitutional and legal order of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” in comments sent to RFE/RL.

The EU’s press office also said that the law passed by the entity’s National Assembly last week “directly contradicts the repeated obligations of the leadership of the Republika Srpska entity to advance on the path of [Bosnia-Herzegovina’s] accession to the European Union.”

Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russian president of Republika Srpska, has long pushed for legislation to restrict foreign-funded NGOs, likening the effort to the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

An analysis by RFE/RL’s Balkan Service, however, noted strong similarities to Russia’s more restrictive “foreign-agents” law from 2012, a law that has also inspired copycat legislation in the pro-Moscow Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan.

The passage of the controversial law was seemingly sped up by Dodik’s sentencing last week by the state Bosnian Court over his failure to execute the decisions of the high representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt.

The court’s first degree verdict — which Dodik has the right to appeal — sentenced Dodik to a year in prison and banned him from political life for six years.

The Republika Srpska assembly responded on February 28 by passing laws that barred state-level law enforcement and judicial organs from the entity, further deepening Bosnia’s political crisis.

The law covering the work of foreign-funded nongovernmental organizations was passed on the same day.

The system of government in Bosnia-Herzegovina is among the most complex in the world.

Since the the Dayton peace agreement, which was signed in 1995 and ended the war in Bosnia, the country has consisted of the Bosniak-Croat federation and the ethnic Serb-dominated Republika Srpska under a weak central government.

While Republika Srpska can pass laws on internal matters, state-level laws and institutions remain supreme according to the constitution.

The Office of the High Representative (OHR), a position held since 2021 by Schmidt, oversees the implementation of civilian aspects of Dayton.

Dodik is currently under US and U.K. sanctions for actions that Western governments say are aimed at the secession of Republika Srpska from Bosnia.

He has denied that the Serb entity of Bosnia has ever pursued a policy of secession, while at the same time pursuing legislation to wrest back powers for Republika Srpska at the expense of the state of Bosnia.

Opposition lawmakers in Republika Srpska effectively boycotted the vote on the “foreign agents” law, which passed with backing from the ruling coalition led by Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats.

The law is formally called a “Law on the Special Register and Public Transparency of the Work of Nonprofit Organizations” that are foreign-funded or foreign supported.

In addition to creating a register of such organizations, the law allows for their surveillance by the authorities, bans broadly defined political activities, mandates additional registration, and requires submitting reports to the Republika Srpska Justice Ministry on the receipt of financial resources from abroad.

It stipulates that in the event of a violation of the law, the relevant ministry can propose to a court that the offending organization be banned from operating./Rferl/