The United States is designating Fadil Novalic, Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH); Slobodan Stankovic, a businessman with close ties to Milorad Dodik, a Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) official previously designated for corruption and obstructing the Dayton Peace Agreement; and Stankovic’s business entity, Integral Inzenjering A.D. Laktasi (Integral).
Under Dodik’s leadership, the ruling coalition in BiH’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity is seeking to create parallel structures that undermine state-level institutions, while ethno-nationalist parties in the FBiH are crippling the country’s democratic processes and abusing positions of power to derive improper financial and political benefit.
Novalic is being designated for undermining democratic processes or institutions in BiH. As Prime Minister of the FBiH, where the issue of pensions has strong political salience, he misused pensioner data contrary to BiH law for the benefit of his own political party. This action is just one of many publicly reported activities in which he used his position for personal or party gain and undermined democratic processes and political institutions essential to BiH’s chosen future within the Euro-Atlantic community.
Stankovic is being designated for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Dodik. Stankovic has long supported Dodik’s destabilizing activities. Stankovic’s firm Integral receives major construction projects in the RS without fair and open competition due to its close connections to RS leadership. In return, Stankovic provided support to Dodik’s propaganda machine by transforming the formerly independent media outlet, Alternativna Televizija, into a mouthpiece for Dodik and his destabilizing and divisive activities. The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Alternativna Televizija for these activities in January 2022. Integral is being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Stankovic.
The United States’ Western Balkans sanctions program targets individuals and entities that, among other criteria, undermine or threaten the postwar agreements and institutions established as part of the hard-won peace and the Dayton Peace Agreement. Today’s actions, which come on the heels of the September 26 designation of corrupt state prosecutor Diana Kajmakovic, demonstrate that we will continue to promote accountability for activities that undermine BiH’s democratic processes and institutions, as well as for complicity in or provision of material support for such activities. This is the fifth sanctions action OFAC has taken pursuant to E.O. 14033.