U.N. Security Council Extends Eufor’s Mandate by a Year

EUFOR ( Photo: PrintScreen YouTube)

On Oct. 31, the U.N. Security Council extended the mandate of the EUFOR mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina by another year.

All of the members of the Security Council voted in favor of renewing EUFOR's mandate. The session, which took place in New York, included a discussion of a report by high representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schmidt, who did not directly address the Security Council this time, as Russia, which does not recognize him as a legitimate high representative, chaired the session.

In the report, which he sent to the Security Council, the high representative said that peace still prevailed in Bosnia and Herzegovina despite the political tensions that ensued after an attack on the fundamental principles of the Dayton Peace Accords by the ruling coalition in Republika Srpska. He went on to say that all sides in Bosnia must abide by the Dayton Accords and by court rulings, whether they came from the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina or the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, accusing the ruling coalition in Republika Srpska of having worked against the state and its institutions for years.

The government of Republika Srpska also sent a report to the Security Council, which read that "the democratic constitutional order established by the Dayton Peace Accords has regrettably been changed and breached by the illegal dictatorial decrees of different international high representatives and most drastically by the current impostor Christian Schmidt." The report also stated that former Republika Srpska president Milorad Dodik and the verdict against him were legally unfounded, and lists a number of actions that it states were not rooted in the law adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly in the proper procedure, as required by the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but solely in "the incrimination which Schmidt himself made up and imposed."