US, EU, Slate Bosnian Serb Push to Designate NGOs as ‘Foreign Agents’

The EU and US have criticised plans by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, president of Bosnia's mainly Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity, to push a new Russian-style law which would allow the entity to mark civil society and non-governmental organisations as "foreign agents".

Dodik did not mention Russia and claimed it would be identical to the law in the United States. "In their law, the US refers to foreign non-governmental organisations or those financed by foreigners as foreign agents on US territory," Dodik told the media last week, adding that the terminology will simply be adapted, and "instead of US, it will say Republika Srpska."

But the US embassy on Friday last week dismissed the comparison.

"We've already seen this movie and we know how it ends. When Russia expanded its foreign agent legislation in 2020, it claimed that it was just copying the American model. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we saw the results," the US embassy to Bosnia wrote. 

The announcement came days after his government adopted draft changes to the criminal code of Republika Srpska that would impose fines of up to tens of thousands of euros for defamation, which was decriminalised in 2003. Many media outlets in the entity have said this will increase censorship.

"Recently, the authorities in Republika Srpska announced plans to adopt two repressive, undemocratic laws that, if implemented, would severely undermine the rights and freedoms of people living in Republika Srpska," the embassy continued.

"These laws would only benefit the ruling coalition in its efforts to consolidate its power, and would be detrimental to everyone else," it added. 

The EU called the plan "unacceptable" and accused the RS of being ...