- Local villagers in Bosnia claim their land was taken illegally to build a Chinese-funded wind farm.
- Legal loopholes and murky land deals are raising suspicions of corruption among Bosnian officials.
- Bosnia’s economic struggles are making it vulnerable to opaque Chinese investment practices.
The wild horses meandering through the rock-strewn hills of western Bosnia-Herzegovina amid towering white windmills make for a tranquil scene.
And one of the last places one would expect to find China’s monolithic Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) embedded in the landscape. But those gentle hills near the Adriatic Sea are part of a fierce battle for land and a clash of interests as Chinese investment penetrates deep into the heart of the Balkans.
At the center of the controversy is Ivovik Hill, home to generations of villagers who say their land has been taken from them and given to Chinese companies as part of an ambitious wind-farm project.
Since the wind turbines were erected and the land fenced off, only the untamed horses can reach the pastured hills — and villagers like Ante Ivkovic say they’re now dispossessed.
Ivkovic’s family has worked the land and maintained grazing pastures for their cattle on Ivovik Hill for centuries. But he says his livelihood has been lost amid a series of opaque business deals between Chinese firms and local officials.
“I sweated here for decades with my grandfather and father, cutting grass and collecting hay for our cattle,” says Ivkovic, adding that they used to drink “sljivovica” (plum brandy) under a lone tree that has now been replaced by a turbine. “That’s how we made our living, [but] suddenly it’s no longer ours,” the 71-year-old, who lives in the nearby village of Zagorichani, told RFE/RL.
“The government took the land from us and gave it to the Chinese. I can’t go farther than this fence,” he claimed as he gestured toward his former grazing fields.
The BRI Comes To Bosnia
In recent years, massive Chinese investment in the Western Balkans under the umbrella of the BRI has led to grand 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 totaled some $32 billion in the Balkans from 2013 to the end of 2023, according to the Montenegrin think tank Digital Forensic Center — has become an influential force in shaping the investment-starved area.
The Ivovik wind-farm project that pushed Ivkovic and his family off their land is currently China’s largest investment in the country.
While ventures like Ivovik can bring jobs and development to local communities, a monthslong RFE/RL investigation found that regulatory loopholes and political complexities around Chinese investment in Bosnia are being exploited by local businessmen and politicians to foster a level of corruption that could jeopardize projects from delivering their promised benefits.
Announced during a 2021 summit in China involving Central and Eastern European countries, the $137 million Ivovik venture — which is owned and financed by a consortium of Chinese state-owned firms — was billed as “the first fruit of cooperation” between Beijing and Sarajevo.
This flagship investment has been championed by Bosnian authorities as a job-creating endeavor that will give the country a foothold in Europe’s growing green-energy space and open the door for future investments in the local economy.
But the wind farm’s lofty ambitions are now caught up in a complex saga of land disputes, questionable concessions, and murky deals that highlight where Chinese state interests and shady local business practices collide. This nexus exposes how well-connected individuals in Bosnia facilitate the influx of Chinese investment into the country and benefit from a web of newfound Chinese capital.
At the heart of the controversy around the Ivovik wind-energy project is a dispute over land ownership, with the government of the canton — the administrative units that make up roughly half of Bosnia — granting land to Chinese companies under questionable and possibly illegal circumstances.
“The owners of that land never gave consent to anyone — neither to any authority nor to the [wind-farm] company Ivovik — to use their land,” Perica Babic, Ivkovic’s lawyer, told RFE/RL, adding that a court case has been filed.
The story of the wind-energy project also exemplifies the intricacies of Bosnia as a decentralized state where authority and control — including over how to apply the law — often lies at the lowest of the various levels of government, which includes the powerful Republika Srpska and Bosniak-Croat federation entities that make up the country.
It’s this labyrinthine administrative structure and its many loopholes that allows various foreign investors — including from China — to maneuver local intermediaries to their own advantage.
Ivica Bresic, an opposition member in the assembly of the nearby city of Livno, claims that the wind farm is one on a growing list of examples in the area that have occurred due to a law that allows cantonal governments to transfer and approve the sale of concessions from one legal entity to another.
“This law essentially grants authorities the ability to issue concession permits, subsequently enabling local businessmen to sell them for [big sums of money],” Bresic told RFE/RL.
Concessions For Chinese Companies
The story of the Ivovik wind farm begins in 2008 when three locals established a limited liability company called Ivovik Wind Park and used the new firm to buy a concession for land in Ivovik for 50,000 Bosnian marks (about $26,400).
Land concessions are typically granted for a period of up to 30 years in Bosnia, and this move set the stage for a series of disputes for the land under the wind farm that shows the subtle ways Chinese companies have been able to operate and how local businessmen and politicians have looked to profit from it.
In the case of the Ivovik wind farm, the purchase was controversial from the beginning.
Ivan Matkovic, a co-owner of the Ivovik company, had a brother named Stjepan who served as the canton’s minister of agriculture, water, and forestry from 2006 to 2012. Unsurprisingly, the land-concession deal was approved by the local government.
Matkovic then transferred ownership of the company to Stjepan, whose term as minister had just ended. After handing off the company, Matkovic told RFE/RL that he was no longer involved in the company or the land, both of which were inherited by Stjepan’s children after he died.
Stjepan Matkovic’s children declined to speak to RFE/RL, but records show they sold the company and its land concession to CNTIC Capital Co. Limited Hong Kong and Sinohydro Hong Kong in 2017 for an undisclosed amount.
According to Ivan Rimac, who co-founded the original company with Ivan Matkovic, the concession was sold for $8 million. But he said he filed a lawsuit against Ivan Matkovic and his relatives after he said he was defrauded.
Ivan Vukadin, the prime minister of Canton 10 who is also the former mayor of the nearby city of Tomislavgrad, told RFE/RL that “investors from China” took over ownership of the concession for the wind farm in Ivovik after its owners “developed the project to a certain stage and needed to find a strategic investor for this [multimillion-dollar] project.”
A Quiet Call To Reregister Land
After the Chinese firms’ acquisition of the wind-energy project in 2018, a notice was issued to property owners to reregister their land, with the last land survey conducted in 1982 when the area was part of Yugoslavia.
The city of Livno’s cadastre office, which is responsible for maintaining land registers and overseeing ownership registration, told RFE/RL that this process “was done in accordance with the law,” saying that the call for property owners to reregister their holdings was posted on the bulletin board at the town hall and advertised on local radio stations.
But many residents near Ivovik Hill say they only became aware that they no longer owned their land when Chinese excavators arrived to clear the ground and build access roads.
“Tell me who goes to read what is posted on the bulletin board at the town hall?” Ivkovic told RFE/RL. “I don’t even know where it’s located. I only visit the town hall if I need a birth or death certificate.”
Ivkovic and his cousins allege that the city of Livno took their family’s “ancestral land” that he said had belonged to his family for “generations” and “handed it to the canton,” which subsequently transferred the land to the Chinese and led to the construction of the wind farm on what had been their pastures.
The Ivkovics have extracts from the cadastre and records from the real-estate register from 1982 that indicate the land in question belongs to them or their parents. They filed a joint lawsuit in 2018 against the city, but the first court hearing was not held until September 2023, long after construction on the project had begun.
Babic, the Ivkovics’ lawyer who represents others who claim their land was unfairly taken by the government in a similarly murky process, said many landowners have died between the two land registrations and — due to the region’s high unemployment rate — many of their descendants have emigrated to various countries in Europe and other parts of the world.
“Today, one-third of the [prewar] population lives in Livno, one-third in Croatia, and one-third in Germany,” says Babic.
Navigating the intricacies of Bosnia’s legal system can be a difficult process and the Ivkovics’ lawyers say it’s unclear how long the court process will take. But if the family loses in the local court the case could still be appealed at the cantonal court, the Bosnian Constitutional Court, and even to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Babic alleges that local officials have used the same practice to take control of land elsewhere. He says that Mt. Krug — 25 kilometers north of Livno — has had similar legal cases amid plans for the construction of more wind farms, although RFE/RL was unable to verify that claim.
According to the canton’s official gazette, which is the register of government legislation, a land concession was transferred from a local owner — presumably the Matkovics — to some Chinese companies without any amendments to the contract in October 2018.
Slaven Jukic, the lawyer representing the Ivovik wind farm, refuted those claims, telling RFE/RL that the Economy Ministry is currently registered as the owner of the disputed land, not the Ivkovic family.
“We provide compensation [to the canton] for the use of that land. If the [Ivkovic family] can demonstrate that it is their land, we will present them with a contract and compensate them instead of the canton,” said Jukic.
When contacted by RFE/RL, Livno Mayor Darko Chondric declined to comment.
But Bresic, the opposition Livno city councilor, alleged that the government approved the transfer of the concession to the Chinese firms without trying to get more favorable terms for the local administration, such as a higher concession fee for selling the land or requiring that the Chinese companies pay a higher percentage of their profits from selling electricity into the cantonal and municipal budgets.
That claim is further supported by the publication in the government’s official gazette that confirms the concession transfer to the new owners without changing the terms of the original contract signed back in 2008 when the Matkovics first acquired the concession.
A Question Of Compensation
The Ivovik wind-farm project also extends onto the jurisdiction of Tomislavgrad, some 38 kilometers from Livno.
Here Slavko, an Ivkovic cousin who also owns land being used by a Chinese company, says the local government has followed the correct protocol in giving the family’s land to the Chinese firms.
“The Chinese provide me with compensation [in Tomislavgrad],” he told RFE/RL. “But my land in the Livno region was seized by the [Economy Ministry of Canton 10], which now receives compensation from the Chinese.”
Tomislavgrad Mayor Ivan Buntic also told RFE/RL that his municipality has adhered to all legal norms around the expansive wind-farm project there and claims that other residents whose land is being used by Chinese firms were compensated.
Buntic, a member of the ruling party, shares the concerns of other opposition members, like Bresic, about how the concessions in Livno were awarded. He says it is important to reevaluate “existing concessions” issued by the Canton 10 government and retroactively pay fees from the start of the concession.
Buntic said such an approach would attract serious investors to Canton 10 and deter those he characterizes as “charlatans” who acquire concessions and hold onto them for extended periods of time without making any further investment, waiting to resell them to foreign investors at inflated prices — as he says was the case with Ivovik Hill near Livno.
The mayor says other municipalities in Canton 10 are also eager to construct more wind and renewable energy projects.
By the end of 2023, an additional 15 concessions for wind-energy projects were issued in Canton 10 — the biggest canton in Bosnia — primarily to local owners and companies registered in the region. But these firms are seeking partners interested in investing hundreds of millions of dollars into potential ventures.
Concessions for wind farms and similar projects in Bosnia are granted either by Republika Srpska, the country’s predominantly ethnic Serb entity, or one of the 10 cantonal governments in the Bosniak-Croat federation. Republika Srpska has a dedicated public database of such concessions that lists plans for 73 new power plants, including 57 mini-hydropower plants, three wind-power facilities, and 13 solar-power installations.
In the Bosniak-Croat federation, permission for wind and solar power plants are granted separately by the 10 cantons.
The southern Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, which is known for its sunny days and windy mountains, had also issued approximately 100 concessions for the construction of wind and solar power plants.
According to company registries accessed by RFE/RL, many of these companies do not have websites or phone numbers. Some are registered to residential addresses and one of them is a business mainly involved in selling toys.
“Concessions are handed out left and right. Resale follows, with individuals making huge profits,” Bresic said.
Wind-Farm Politics
Selling land concessions for wind farms is not only a one-off transaction for local cantons inside Bosnia but can also provide a regular source of income to governments and well-connected individuals.
In recent years, Chinese institutions have bankrolled green-energy projects to a