In a letter sent to the heads of diplomacy of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gordan Grlić Radman and Elmedin Konaković, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on them to influence the head of HDZ BiH, Dragan Čović, to urgently adopt the Law on the Southern Gas Interconnection, which would connect Bosnia and Croatia and reduce Bosnia’s dependence on Russian gas.
According to Bosnian and Croatian media, Blinken believes Čović is obstructing the project by demanding that a new gas distribution company be set up in the Croat-majority city of Mostar. This operator would supply gas to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the two entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Blinken notes in the letter that the gas distribution business in the Federation should be carried out by the Sarajevo-based company BH Gas.
“The US is deeply committed to supporting stability, security, and regional economic integration in the Western Balkans. The project of the southern interconnection gas pipeline between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina is crucial for your energy security and the acceleration of the phase-out of coal,” Blinken wrote in the letter he sent to Sarajevo and Zagreb, a copy of which was published by the Bosnian portal Istraga. ba.
According to the same source, the letter was sent on 11 January, with its existence being confirmed by the country’s foreign minister, Elmedin Konaković, according to avaz.ba.
At the time of writing, neither the HDZ BiH nor Zagreb had reacted.
Bosnia and Herzegovina depend entirely on imports of Russian gas, which comes to the country via the Turkish Stream through a branch from Serbia. The gas pipeline, which enters BiH from Serbia via the town of Zvornik in the east of the country, is the only gas connection between BiH and the world.
The US has warned about this for a long time, but so has the EU, which mentioned BiH’s dependence on Russian gas in the candidate country’s progress report last autumn.
The solution to ending dependence on Russian gas in Sarajevo, but also in Zagreb, Brussels and Washington, is to connect Bosnia to the Croatian gas network in such a way that Mostar and Zenica in Bosnia would be connected to Imotski in Croatia by a gas pipeline. This would also connect Bosnia to the LNG terminal on the Croatian island of Krk.
However, like many other issues, the question of the gas connection has divided politicians and the public in Bosnia along ethnic lines. The political leaders of Republika Srpska, the Serb-majority entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, want to increase the gas dependence of their entity and Bosnia as a whole on Serbia and Russia and are seeking the construction of a new gas pipeline to Serbia.
On the other hand, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina leaders, which has a majority of ethnic Bosniaks and Croats, want a connection to the Croatian gas pipeline network, which would further connect them to the West. But they are divided over whether a company from Sarajevo, the Bosniak-majority capital, or Mostar, the Croat-majority city, should be responsible for the gas transport.
At the end of 2022, Bosnia and Herzegovina was granted EU candidate status. Although Sarajevo had hoped to start EU accession negotiations by the end of 2023, this did not happen, and the target date for the start of the talks was set for March this year, on condition that BiH meets specific criteria set by Brussels.
(Adriano Milovan | Euractiv.hr)
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