The assembly of Republika Srpska, Bosnia's Serbian entity, has adopted proposals for the central Bosnian parliament on ways to counter economic challenges faced by the country, which is going through its worst political crisis since the end of the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
The assembly on March 18 approved a proposal to decrease the value-added tax (VAT) on basic food items from 17 to 5 percent and increase taxes on luxury goods from 17 to 22 percent.
The approved proposals also include the possible abolition of excise duties on oil and oil products.
The current price of gasoline in the country is about three convertible marks ($1.7) per liter, and if the proposal to abolish excise duties for oil products is fully approved, that price may be decreased to 35 pfenigs ($0.20), the lawmakers say.
The convertible mark is the currency of Bosnia-Herzegovina and is divided into 100 pfenigs or fenings and locally abbreviated KM.
Two days earlier, such proposals were rejected by Bosnian Serb leader Miroslav Dodik and three other members of his Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) at the session of the Bosnian parliament in an apparent move to separate decision-making powers of the Bosnian Serb entity from the rest of the country.
Republika Srpska's prime minister, Radovan Viskovic, who criticized Dodik and his party members for rejecting the proposal, expressed hope that the move will be approved at the next session of the central parliament after Republika Srpska lawyers approve the document.
Dodik, the Serbian member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, has been trying to separate the entity's military, police, and tax administration from the central Bosnian government, actions that contravene 1995 Dayton accords that ended the Bosnian wars.
The Dayton accords ended the war in ethnically divided Bosnia that killed more than 100,000 people and left millions homeless.
The accords created two highly autonomous entities that share some joint institutions: Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation.
The country is governed and administered along ethnic lines established by the agreement, with a weak and often dysfunctional central government.
Dodik has been under the U.S. sanctions over corruption and threatening the stability and territorial integrity of Bosnia.