Igor Crnadak - the foreign minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina HARDtalk

Those are the headlines. Next, it's time for HARDtalk.

In 2016, Bosnia and Herzegovina will apply for membership

Why would the EU, beset by troubles of its own, want to embrace a state

still deeply divided and dysfunctional 20 years after the end

of the Bosnian war? My guest today is Igor Crnadak,

the foreign minister of Bosnia -- Is Bosnia imprisoned by its

past? Igor Crnadak, welcome to

HARDtalk. It is good to be here. 2016 promises

to be a very big year for you and your country. You have made it clear

that you will file an official application for EU membership. But

given the state of politics in your country, isn't that the most extreme

form of wishful thinking? I think that there is reason for optimism.

As you know, we have this new approach by the EU to Bosnia and

Herzegovina, which has enabled us to be focused on economic reforms, the

fight against corruption, and on real-life things. This is a great

chance for us right now. Of course, as you have said, there remain

certain problems but even with this, the new government and the new

ministers have already produced some results. We have consensus on the

integration process and what needs to be done next full of our reform

agenda is accepted by even opposition parties. I admire your

positivity and optimism but the facts on the ground speak somewhat

otherwise. Let us face it. Your country is not even truly

sovereign, by which I mean that under the Dayton agreement, the

agreement that created the Bosnia Herzegovina that we know today, you

are still in a sense governed by an outside representative. And the

former high Representative, Lord Ashdown, he said that what began as

a dynamic of integration has reversed into a dynamic of

disintegration. Just to finish that previous sentence, I think that we

have realistic optimism right now and that we have produced some

results. Of course, as you have said, there are some examples of the

fact that Bosnia Herzegovina has some very big specifics like the

OHR, for example, like you said. Nobody thinks that Bosnia

Herzegovina can become a complete member of the EU with the office of

the high representative, or, for example, with foreign judges sitting

in our constitutional court. But you cannot afford to walk away from the

HSR, because without that international support, your country

would probably fall apart. -- OHR. I would not put it like that. I think

that we are very close now to being able to move forward without foreign

intervention, without a foreign presence in our institutions.

Really? The one constituent element of the Federation, the Republika

Srpska, has made it plain that it sees its future as an aid --

independent entity and every single day right now, we seen them pushing

further and further towards independence. I come from Republika

Srpska and I have to ask you one thing. Did you know one single

political party or one single politician who is fighting for the

independence of Republika Srpska? The elected president of Republika

Srpska has said that by 2018, he wants to give his people the

opportunity to vote in a referendum on secession. He is saying a lot of

things but you should look... He is the elected president of Republika

Srpska. That is right, but you should look at his actions. For now,

it is quite different. There is, of course, and it does need to be said

that in the Republika Srpska, there are two blocs that are equally

strong and one of them... With all due respect, you are from the bloc

that is against him but the fact is that he is in charge and just two

days ago there was a day of statehood in Republika Srpska, where

the flags were out and he was proclaiming the autonomy of

Republika Srpska against the wishes of your sovereign constitutional

court, and he said, to help with that, we will have this national day

anyway. I think that the Republika Srpska is not a threat to anybody.

It was a clear violation of your constitution. Let me explain,

please. I'm sitting on the Council of Ministers and together with my

colleagues, also with the Republika Srpska, we have big disagreements

with Mr Dodic on economic issues. The economy in Republika Srpska is

in terrible shape. Also, we have disagreements on corruption issues.

But when it comes to the position of Republika Srpska insight Bosnia

Herzegovina, we are in the same position. Really? The same position

as Mr Dodic, who says that he would like a referendum on the

Constitutional Court and its lack of authority inside Republika Srpska?

You support him on that? Let me explain. When it comes to the

Constitutional Court ruling, I have to say that it is one of the most

senseless decisions in political life that I have seen these last 15

years. But with respect, Mr Dodic is wanting to deny the authority of the

Bosnia Herzegovina court system. Do you also deny that authority? This

is the ruling that brought no benefit to anybody. But please

answer my question. Do you deny the authority of the Bosnia Herzegovina

court system? First of all, this ruling was made by three votes by

international judges and two votes by Bosnian judges. I'm asking you a

bigger and more important question. Do here, like Mr Dodic, deny the

authority of the Bosnia Herzegovina courts to declare their edicts, to

make the law inside Republika Srpska? 89 rulings on the

Constitutional Court so far have not been incremented. This is number

90. This is not that simple. -- have not been implemented. I'm telling

you... If you were a sovereign nation with a court and a judicial

system that was truly national, it would be simple. And coming back to

our opening conversation about whether Bosnia Herzegovina is ready

to file an application to be an EU member, everything you are now

telling me suggests that you are nowhere near ready because you

cannot even agree on the authority of the national courts. Again, it is

very clear what the authority of the court is in Bosnia had been a. They

are on different levels of government. There are different

levels on the Canton levels, scalable. Is not a problem in Bosnia

Herzegovina. We have an ongoing dialogue with the judicial system

that will hopefully produce some results and improvement of this. But

I do not think this is such a problem that should bring along such

a comment like you have just said, that it is a sign that we're not

ready for Europe. I don't think it is true but I do think that we need

international judges out of the Constitutional Court as soon as

possible because Bosnia Herzegovina cannot become a member of the EU

with foreign judges sitting on it Constitutional Court. Let me try one

more time to get a specific answer from you. Mr Dodic would like a

referendum on this question of whether Republika Srpska recognises

the authority of the national Bosnia Herzegovina courts. Do you support

that referendum? The political party that I come from, the vice president

has deposed -- opposed the referendum. We believe there are big

problems in our judicial system, especially when it comes to the

fight against corruption and when it comes to prosecuting war crimes, but

we do not see this kind of referendum as the answer to this and

it cannot bring any good, not even to Republika Srpska, let alone the

entirety of Bosnia Herzegovina. I think that the real motives of

initiating this referendum are of domestic politics and they want this

for domestic political fights. One of those domestic issues is

corruption... And let me say that I do not even think there will be this

kind of referendum. It is Mr Dodic's decision, I guess. He is in

charge in Republika Srpska. Yes, he has the majority for this. If he

believes it should be done, he will go on with this, but again, my

feeling is that we will not see this happen. Mr Dodic says, just one

final point on the judiciary, he says that the judiciary in Sarajevo

is not fair, they are biased against us Bosnian Serbs in Republika

Srpska. And as an example, he cites the fact that the government is

examining allegations of corruption against him, particularly some of

his assets, including property that he holds in Belgrade. As the Foreign

Minister of your country, do you believe that the investigations into

Mr Dodic are legitimate or are they a sign of bias? All of the

investigations against anybody must be free of any kind of pressure. I'm

asking you whether you regard this particular investigation as

independent and free of pressure or whether you see it as biased? I have

not seen any signal or any indicator in this particular investigation of

bias. As minister of Foreign Affairs Committee, the Council of Ministers,

let me say that we are determined to demonstrate clear political will and

to create the political atmosphere for the final beginning of the fight

against corruption. Because in this country, we have not seen this

political will demonstrated before and, of course, ministers and the

governments cannot prosecute, cannot arrest people, but we can create

this kind of atmosphere. In the last eight to nine months, we have made

some personnel changes, some organisational changes, and I do

expect to see some good results from the fight against corruption in the

near future in Bosnia. Do you think it is right that a Roma or a Jew

could not be a senior official in the Bosnian government because of

your constitution? Do you think that is right? Let me answer on regard

that question... For people who do not understand, it was a legal case

six years ago that said in terms of European human rights law, it was

unacceptable that your country says that you must be a Bosnian Muslim or

Croat or a server to hold one of the highest offices of state. -- Serb.

The court said that was totally unacceptable but that is still the

case. Absolutely. Let me add one last thing to that question. We have

spoken a lot about Mr Dodik and Republika Srpska and we have spoken

a lot about corruption. I would not likely to be the impression that

this is only a problem related to Republika Srpska. The problem of

corruption is one of the biggest problems we are facing in Bosnia

Herzegovina, and it is equally present in black youth that it is!

And we will face its certainly in the future. -- you get that it is.

As for people not being able to be a candidate for the position in the

presidency unless they are Croat, Serbian or Bosnia, that is the most

clear example of discrimination. And we are absolutely, absolutely aware

of the fact that... LAUGHTER. With all due respect, you have been aware

of it for six years and you have done absolutely nothing about it.

Let me explain. In the middle of the 20th century in the heart of Europe,

it can stay like that. Unfortunately, we have not been able

to find the solution of how to deal with this issue. Politicians and

parties coming from Republika Srpska have proposed a very, very simple

answer to this. It would not state that one Serbian would be elected

from Republika Srpska and one Croat and Bosnian from the Federation, but

rather it would state that it would be one of the presidency from -- one

with residency in Republika Srpska and one person with residency in the

Federation. Let me finish, there was a will on

other sites to change some other things also. I have a lot more

questions for you, so let's try to get something through quickly. He

said corruption was a problem in other countries, not just in

Republic Srpska. Suggestions are that corruption is rife throughout

your country. Recently, it was said, how is it that people working

on public salaries are able to purchase lavish cars and large

homes, unfortunately asset disclosure rules have been weakened

recently in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Will you be very transparent about

your assets, because the allegation is that public offices just are not

very public. Absolutely, I stay open for anybody wanting to ask anything

about anything that I have. Exactly what you just stated, it is

something that this new council minister wants to change. We want to

ask everybody, with huge assets, with a huge amount of money in their

accounts, and with just civil servant salaries behind them, how

they got that. Do you have what Mr Duffy would call expensive houses

and lavish cars? No, not myself. There are so many layers of

political bureaucracy in your country, the federal level, the

state-level... Parable to other regions, bureaucrats are better paid

than in any other country in Europe -- can parable. I haven't seen this

comparison, but I can agree. Even though I have been a council

minister for eight months, and before that I had a long history of

being a conviction politician, so maybe I'm not the best person to ask

all these questions, but we do what we want to do... What we want to do

is have a clear situation on every politician, and not only

politicians, every public figure in the country, it is that is what

people want. I will tell you one thing, just to show you how big the

problem is, in one of the recent research is, it showed that three

quarters of the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has some of the

worst corruption in Europe, three quarters of people said that they

wouldn't report corruption even if they knew about it. This is the very

horrible thing about all of us doing important and accountable jobs in

the country, because people do not have trust in institutions. They are

not safe to be part of this fight against corruption, and I understand

that you take a big priority for this issue, and you quote some of

the people talking about it. It is absolutely normal, and does give us

some more time. I am sure that these council ministers will show some

progress on fighting corruption is. Is it true that some allies with

Russia in the Serb government are actively trying to block any move of

Bosnia and Herzegovina towards the EU? Our key strategic foreign policy

goal is to get towards the EU. I know that, and the Russian Foreign

Minister has made it clear that he doesn't believe that Bosnia and

Herzegovina, along with countries like Macedonia and others,... Phone

talking now about European integration. Part of that is Nato

and parties the European Union. The bottom line is, the Russians regard

your orientations with the EU and Nato has provocative. They are very

reluctant to use Repubblica Srpska as an instrument of delay of selling

chaos inside your country. First, we have to divide the different issues.

One of them is EU and Nato. When it comes to EU intervention in our

country, I had two meetings in the last eight months, and it is clear

that Russia will not lock or slow down in any way our European

integration process. When you saw Lavrov, did you tell him that it was

none of his business whether you join Nato will not? We have a two

track policy to Nato, and for me it is very important to make it clear.

We have a huge consensus inside the country on continuing strong

cooperation with Nato. We have more than 100 different activities with

Nato yearly. We have... Our presence is very strong in Nato operations

around the world, in Afghanistan, where we have been present from day

one. We have the consensus on intensifying this kind of

cooperation. On the other hand, we do not have the consensus on the

final decision on the membership in Nato. We do want to continue... You

are to tell me that Nato and the EU are different. A report came out

last summer from a respected think tank saying that Moscow clearly

wants to delay or derail plans for EU and Nato expansion. Its policy

towards Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to be seen in that context. I have

to tell you what I know, and I know that there is nothing like that when

it comes to our European integration process. When it comes to Nato, I

explained the position. You have made that point. Let me say one also

important thing that I think is not right, and that is that there is

some kind of negative attitude from Belgrade. I think the message is

that we are getting from Belgrade in the last years are quite positive.

Let me remind you that it was said very openly recently that Serbia is

accepting and regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina has a friend, and wants

to continue to develop relations. You probably feel warmer towards

Belgrade than the Bosnia acts in the government that you represent. That

is normal, because we have so-called special relations between the party

and Repubblica Srpska, and it stays. I'm going to. Because we are almost

out of time. There are alarming reports that we have heard in recent

days that your government is doing very little to move against

significant numbers of Islamic State activists and supporters who are

inside your country. Allegations also that there is an Islamic State

de facto training facility on your territory. Why aren't you doing more

to eliminate this threat? I think there should be seen as not a burden

for Bosnia and Herzegovina. But it is on your territory. I'm sure you

have read this. 12 Islamic State fighters trained in this village

have left for Syria in the last six months. Bosnia and Herzegovina was

the first country in the region that endorsed foreign fighters. The

number of foreign fighters has reduced since we introduced this

law. How can you allow a camp that is clearly being used by jihadis on

your territory? You mentioned just one village, all the villages, all

the parts of territory where there is gathering of Islamic fanatics, it

is strongly under the eye of our agencies. Our minister of security

is working very closely with similar agencies, in Europe and the US as

well, and I do not think, and I haven't heard, anybody saying that

we are tolerating something like that. We are very strong on this and

Bosnia and Herzegovina is part of the coalition against terrorism. We

have gone from a country that was only a diplomatic supporter, to one

that also made some very important donations of ammunition, and we are

doing our best even inside the country to fight terrorism. Igor

Crnadak, I'm afraid we have to end there. Thank you very much.

A more wintry feel to the weather across the United