General
There is, it seems, no solution to which politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina can’t find another problem.
When Bosnia’s international peace overseer, the High Representative, Christian Schmidt, ordered payment of a 60-million-euro debt to the Slovenian company Viaduct on July 17, he resolved a long-standing international obligation – but also ignited a fresh internal dispute.
The money was drawn from excise duties collected at state level from every litre of fuel sold in Bosnia.
But was taken from the portion of duties normally allocated to Bosnia’s Serb-run entity, Republika Srpska, whose leadership had refused to pay the debt, insisting it should be paid by the central government – even though Republika Srpska made the deal.
Under the same intervention using his so-called Bonn Powers to impose decisions, Schmidt also ordered the state to allocate funds to procure modern election technologies, such as ballot scanners, cameras and electronic identification devices. The 63 million euros for these are to be drawn from the profits of Bosnia’s Central Bank, with the aim of implementing the new tech in the October 2026 general elections.
But this intervention has become yet another flashpoint in the country’s entrenched battle over fiscal sovereignty, state legitimacy and the limits of international oversight.