Chinese wind farms in Bosnia highlight conflicting interests and corruption in the Balkans

SARAJEVO -- Wild horses roaming the rocky hills of western Bosnia amid white windmills make for a tranquil place. And it seems one of the last places to find China's unquestioned "One Belt, One Road" (BRI) initiative penetrating the heart of the Balkans lies next door. At the center of the dispute is Ivovik Hill, home to generations of residents who claim their land was taken from them and given to Chinese companies as part of an ambitious wind farm project.

Since the wind turbines were installed and the land was fenced off, only untamed horses have access to the hillside pastures, and residents like Ante Ivković claim they have been deprived of their rights. Ivkovic's family has worked the land and maintained pastures for their cattle on Ivovik Hill for centuries. But he says his amid a myriad of business deals between Chinese firms and local officials has lost his livelihood.

"This is how we used to make a living, [but] suddenly it's not ours anymore," says Ante Ivkovic, standing on land he says was illegally sold to a Chinese company for an expansive wind farm. "I sweated here for decades with my grandfather and father, cutting grass and collecting hay for our cattle," Ivkovic says, adding that they used to drink "plivovica" (plum wine) under one isolated tree, which has now been replaced by a turbine.

"This is how we used to make a living, [but] suddenly it's no longer ours," a 71-year-old resident of the neighboring village of Zagoricani tells RFE/RL.

BRI comes to Bosnia

In recent years, massive Chinese investment in the Western Balkans as part of BRI products has led to huge promises of regional and national economic prosperity and new infrastructure. As the region continues to recover from the bloody Bosnian War some 30 years ago, Chinese capital, which according to Montenegro's Center for Digital Forensics, totaled some $32 billion in the Balkans from 2013 to the end of 2023, has become an influential force shaping the investment-depleted region.

The Ivovic wind farm project, which has forced Ivkovic and his family off the land, is China's largest investment in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While projects like Ivovic can create jobs and develop local communities, an RFE/RL investigation spanning several months found that regulatory loopholes and political difficulties surrounding Chinese investment in Bosnia are being exploited by local businessmen and politicians to substitute corruption, which could undermine the project's promised benefits.

In one example of close cooperation between the EECC Group and domestic businesses on the Novoviliamovskoye farm, the company was granted a concession to develop forest resource deposits over 200,000 square kilometers in 2009. Gold mining operations are conducted using expensive technologies supported by local authorities with tax reallocations and related national level programs. The majority of the granted deposit was impacted in 2020.