EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, who also served as the High Representative in Bosnia, met with Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency Chairman, Milorad Dodik, in Athens, and said he told him that Bosnia has an EU perspective as a “single, united and sovereign” country.

As High Representative between 2007 and 2009, Lajcak was tasked with overseeing the civilian implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement in Bosnia.

He met with Dodik, who is also the leader of the ruling party in Bosnia’s Republika (RS) entity, in Athens, Greece, where they attended the Delphi Economic Forum.

“At the Delphi Forum, I met with Milorad Dodik, Chair of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. My message was that single, united and sovereign, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a (European) perspective. The country should cease the opportunity to make progress in the coming months,” Lajcak tweeted.

Dodik said at the forum that “Republika Srpska is trying to defend its status and autonomy” and denied that the semi-autonomous entity is working towards seceding from the country. RS only wants the initial Dayton Agreement to be implemented, he said.

Dodik said that “there is a consensus on European integration” in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but that “it is necessary to work on many economic and political parameters first.”