Germany has suspended 120 million euros ($125 million) worth of infrastructure projects in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Serb entity over its leaders' secessionist policies, the international peace envoy said.
Christian Schmidt told Bosnian regional N1 television on July 4 that he could not rule out that Germany could follow the United States and Britain by imposing sanctions against those seen as destabilizing Bosnia.
"Nobody should feel safe in this regard," Schmidt said without naming anyone specifically. Schmidt, a German politician, assumed the role of high commissioner in August 2021.
Pro-Russia Serb leader Milorad Dodik sparked Bosnia's worst political crisis since the end of its 1990s war and triggered sanctions against him from London and Washington after saying late last year that Republika Srpska, the ethnic-Serb entity, would pull out of the Western Balkan nation’s joint military, top judiciary body, and tax administration.
The Republika Srpska parliament in December voted to start work on a nonbinding motion meant to pave the way for secession.
In June, Dodik said the war in Ukraine has forced Bosnian Serb nationalists to delay the plans to pull their region out of Bosnia-Herzegovina's national institutions.
Dodik serves as the Serb member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, which also includes a Bosniak Muslim and an ethnic Croatian member.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is still governed under the terms of a 1995 peace treaty known as the Dayton accords that divided the country into a Bosniak and Croat federation and a majority-Serb
entity.