US Right-Wing Heritage Foundation Promotes Changes to Bosnia’s Peace Agreement

Bosnia and Herzegovina was the only topic of the lobbying meeting between Paul McCarthy, from the influential US right-wing think-tank Heritage Foundation, and the right-wing Portuguese MEP Antonio Tanger Correa, held in Brussels in March. BIRN can reveal that the two men discussed the controversial idea that certain researchers at the Heritage Foundation have been promoting – a revision of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the 1992-95 war. In response to BIRN, Correa’s office said that the MEP emphasised that a new approach to Bosnia and Herzegovina is needed and revising the framework established by the Dayton Peace Agreement should be a priority. “Thirty years after the Agreement, such thinking is necessary given the profound changes in the international environment and the internal political and institutional dynamics of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Correa’s office said in a written statement. “The goal of any such discussion must be to ensure more efficient, more representative, and more sustainable institutions and to support the country’s European future,” it added, stating the MEP has long been interested in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly given his mandate as EU Special Envoy for the Western Balkans in 2007. McCarthy, the senior research fellow for European affairs at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom, did not respond to BIRN questions by the time of publication. Correa is vice-president of the right-wing parliamentary group Patriots for Europe in the European legislature and the Heritage Foundation is behind the Project 2025 policy package, considered to be the ideological foundation for the second Donald Trump US presidency. BIRN analysis of the Transparency International’s database that maps meetings held between EU officials and politicians, NGOs and lobbying firms from the EU and non-member states, shows Bosnia and Herzegovina was a topic of a number of other lobbying meetings between those who support a revision of the Dayton accords. Heritage Foundation researchers seek change in Bosnia Max Primorac, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom. Photo: US House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. The suggested revision of the Dayton Agreement to give Croats more political power via a third, Croat-led entity – a highly controversial idea in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where many see it as riskily disruptive – was promoted at an event organised by the Heritage Foundation earlier this year. TradFest was held in Zagreb in April 2026, described on its official website as “a festival of tradition and conservative ideas, opposed to so-called ‘progressive’ and militantly secularist ideas and policies that seek to destroy the original traditional, conservative, and Christian foundations of culture in Croatia, Europe, and the Western world”. One of the sessions at TradFest was “Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Failed State and the Necessity of a Third Croatian Entity”, at which a map dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina into three “republics” – Serb, Croat and Bosniak/Muslim – was presented. In February 2026, the Heritage Foundation published an article by Max Primorac, another senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom, titled “An Islamist State on NATO’s Border?” It claimed that Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina have “rejected Croat and Serb calls for political equality”, and called on political leaders in Sarajevo to “stop oppressing” Christians in the country. A year earlier, the Heritage Foundation published a report by Primorac claiming that the Office of the High Representative, the international overseer responsible for ensuring the continued implementation of the Dayton peace deal, is the main cause of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political dysfunction and has become an “imperial administrator” undermining domestic sovereignty. This position overlaps with the long-standing stance of the Serb-led Republika Srpska entity and of Russia, both which dispute the legitimacy of the High Representative and seek the reduction or abolition of the Office’s powers. A month before Correa’s meeting with McCarthy of the Heritage Foundation, the Portuguese politician met Primorac to discuss the current situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the data published by Transparency International shows. Primorac did not respond to multiple inquiries sent to his office. Who is Antonio Tanger Correa? The office of Portuguese MEP Antonio Tanger Correa said he believes a new approach to Bosnia and Herzegovina is needed and that revising the framework established by the Dayton Peace Agreement should be a priority. Photo: EPA/Hugo Delgado. Tanger Correa was the Portuguese ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1996 to 1998. He currently serves as vice-president of the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament, which brings together nationalist, conservative, and right-wing parties from several EU member states. Among them are the far-right National Rally from France, as well as Fidesz, the party of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, which strongly supported Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik. Correa’s European Parliament biography states that he is a member of the board of the Patriots for Europe Foundation, a think-tank foundation affiliated with the Patriots for Europe political ‘family’. In July 2025, he criticised the European Union’s 2023 and 2024 reports on Bosnia and Herzegovina because it mentions that Russia and China as unacceptable sources of influence in Republika Srpska, but there is no mention of “growing Islamisation in parts of the [Bosniak and Croat-led] Federation [entity]”. Correa also proposed deleting text from the European Parliament’s 2025 report calling on Republika Srpska authorities to respect the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its ruling on the entity’s Law on Foreign Agents, which critics saw as a way for Dodik and his allies to target NGOs and independent media receiving foreign funds. Correa further proposed removing portions of text condemning the “secessionist intentions” of Republika Srpska’s leadership. He additionally suggested removing explicit references to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the context of EU foreign policy and sanctions against Russia, as well as Brussels’ concerns about malign foreign disinformation influence on Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although the final version retained the condemnation of Russia and disinformation from Moscow, the word “secessionism” was removed. BIRN could not confirm whether or not Correa personally influenced that decision. According to SRNA news agency, in September 2025, Republika Srpska leader Dodik described Correa as a “friend” and a “voice of reason” in the European Parliament. According to Dodik, Correa rejects “colonial dictates” toward Republika Srpska – a reference to decisions by the High Representative that have curbed the Bosnian Serb leader’s official powers. Bosnian Serbs meet with French right-wingers Thierry Mariani, then an adviser to French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, attended the Day of Republika Srpska celebration in 2022 at the invitation of Milorad Dodik, despite the state-level Constitutional Court having ruled the event unconstitutional. Photo: EPA/Christophe Petit Tesson. Analysis of Transparency International’s lobbying data at EU headquarters reveals other meetings at which Bosnia and Herzegovina was a topic. These meetings involved politicians from Republika Srpska and members of the European Parliament close to right-wing, sovereigntist or pro-Russian-oriented forces in Brussels. The database reveals that in April 2026 a meeting was held between the president of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, Nenad Stevandic, and Aleksandar Nikolic, an MEP from the French right-wing National Rally party. Other delegates from the Assembly at the meeting were Republika Srpska MPs Maja Dragojevic-Stojic, Mladen Ilic and Aleksandar Trnic, along with Bojana Kondic Panic, head of the Republika Srpska Representative Office in France. BIRN contacted all the participants for details, but none of them responded to requests for an interview. The stance of National Rally members toward Bosnia and Herzegovina has been known for some time — in January 2022, Thierry Mariani, an adviser to then leader Marine Le Pen, attended the controversial annual celebration of the Day of Republika Srpska at the invitation of Dodik, even though the state-level Constitutional Court had outlawed the event for being ethnically exclusive. Zijad Becirovic of the International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) in Ljubljana argued that support for ethno-nationalist politicians who question the fundamental principles on which the Dayton Peace Agreement rests – sovereignty and territorial integrity – represents a serious risk. “The policies of Milorad Dodik, part of the radical ethno-nationalist forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the [Bosnian Croat nationalist party] HDZ BiH [Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina] and [its leader] Dragan Covic, which have political support from related structures in Croatia, but also certain ties to Russian interests, have for years sought to present themselves as a struggle for ‘internal autonomy’,” explained Becirovic. “However, their actual political goals often exceed the boundaries of the constitutional order and lead toward the blockading of institutions, the destabilisation of the state, and, ultimately, secession,” he claimed. The EPP and the Heritage Foundation HDZ Bosnia and Herzegovina leader Dragan Covic, European Parliament member Zeljana Zovko and Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic Radman. Photo: Croatian Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. A report published in February by Germany’s Der Spiegel, Sweden’s Aftonbladet and the environmental campaign group BLOOM detailed what BLOOM described as “harmful links between the European conservative right and Trumpist circles”, indicating that some European parliamentarians have come under American influence as Washington attempts to shift the political balance in Brussels rightwards. BLOOM researcher Alessandro Mazzotti told BIRN that the Heritage Foundation’s isn’t just seeking political connections on the far right of the European parliament, but also within European People’s Party, EPP, which brings together centre-right parties and is the largest political group in the EU. The report also highlights a meeting between Manfred Weber, president of the EPP, Jorgen Warborn, a member of the Swedish Parliament, and representatives of the Heritage Foundation. “The Heritage Foundation acts as a kind of intermediary in this shift of the EPP toward a more radically right-wing position,” said Mazzotti. An important figure connecting people within this lobbying environment, Mazzotti claimed, is Croatian MEP Zeljana Zovko of the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union party, which is part of the EPP. He claimed that Zovko has opened many doors for the Heritage Foundation. Zovko provided support for the Heritage Foundation’s TradFest in Zagreb. “Over the past three or four years she has been one of the leading representatives in the European Parliament for the European People’s Party. Essentially the first point of contact between the EPP and Heritage. She was really the person who started this cooperation, this dialogue,” said Mazzotti. Zovko has publicly met with Heritage representatives on multiple occasions, including Primorac. According to Mazzotti, Zovko is the first person to have created the link between the Heritage Foundation and the EPP – a link that today influences cooperation between Brussels and the Trump administration. Zovko told BIRN that critical sentiment towards her is partly caused by her role in the EU’s trade agreement with the US, as well as her role as the EPP’s chief negotiator in Brussels’ talks with Washington. “I am the EPP negotiator, that is why I am also in the area of defence and trade and that is why all the attacks are there. I am the contact person for Congress and all the [American] foundations. I am the key person in the EPP for relations with everyone in the US Congress and I talk to all the foundations,” she said. “As the vice-president of the EPP group in charge of EPP diplomacy, my duty includes maintaining contacts with all the relevant interlocutors. I open the doors and that is my nature – you have to communicate with everyone, not only with Heritage and America First, but also with the left foundations,” she added. In her view, a revision of the Dayton Agreement is not currently a realistic option. “I advocate for full implementation, respect for the Dayton Agreement and the spirit of the Dayton Agreement. It is not being respected; if it were, Croats would have their own member of the presidency and they would have a fair electoral law,” she said. Critics have alleged that the election victory of the current Croat member of the tripartite Bosnian presidency, Zeljko Komsic, relied on more Bosniak voters rather than Croats, and hence does not represent the will of the Croat people in the country. However, as Zovko pointed out: “For a revision [of Dayton], you need to have the other two peoples [Serbs and Bosniaks] on your side. The Serbs would not agree to that, and the Bosniaks in this set-up would not agree to a more profound revision either.”