It is at risk of falling out with the , after it tried to delay the award of a highly lucrative contract to build a pipeline to a company linked to the president’s personal lawyer, according to documents seen by Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
Brussels has already clashed with Trump over issues such as trade, Ukraine and defense spending, but the intervention in the Southern Interconnection pipeline project appears to be the first time the EU has questioned the commercial activity of people close to the US president.
The pipeline is to pass through Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to Bosnian sources, after months of pressure from US officials, the country’s political leadership is moving quickly to award the project to a until recently virtually unknown company based in Wyoming.
The history of the company and its owners
AAFS Infrastructure and Energy was founded in November last year and has not disclosed its owners. It is led by two key figures in the Trump campaign’s bid to overturn the 2020 election: Jesse Binal, a lawyer who defended Trump against accusations that he instigated the incidents on Capitol Hill after his election loss, and Joe Flynn, the brother of the president’s former national security adviser.
Despite not appearing to have a significant track record in the sector, AAFS plans to invest about $1.5 billion in the pipeline and other infrastructure projects in Bosnia, a local spokesman said.
What happened to the contract and direct award
In March, lawmakers in Bosnia approved legislation that, according to Transparency International, sets a “dangerous precedent” by providing that the contract will be awarded directly to AAFS without a competitive process.
A few days later, the European Union’s representative in Sarajevo warned Bosnia’s leadership that the move was jeopardizing the country’s EU membership aspirations.
In a letter sent on April 13, obtained by Bosnian investigative journalism outlet istraga.ba and seen by the Guardian, EU official Luigi Soreka wrote that, under the energy deal between Bosnia and Brussels, it is “crucial that the bills are fully harmonized” with the European Union.
Soreka stressed that Brussels should have a say in pipeline legislation. “In this way, Bosnia and Herzegovina can continue its path towards Europe and avoid losing opportunities for further integration, as well as economic opportunities,” he said.
Binal, for his part, said the pipeline is a “priority for the Trump administration.” Asked about the EU’s intervention, he said: “AAFS is focused on what really matters about this project: strengthening energy security and promoting economic development for the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are committed to working closely with all relevant authorities to develop the infrastructure required to make this vision a reality.”
The pipeline, which would connect Bosnia to a liquefied natural gas terminal off the coast of Croatia, would allow US natural gas to reach a country that is currently completely dependent on Russia for its supply.
Front cliff and back stream for the EU
Following Vladimir Putin’s 2022 Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Brussels set a 2028 deadline for EU member states – as well as candidate countries such as Bosnia – to stop buying Russian gas.
However, the European Union now faces the possibility that a crucial piece of Europe’s energy “chess” will pass into the control of not just an American company, but one that is personally connected to a president who maintains a conflicted relationship with Brussels.
The AAFS website displays a large eagle, a symbol of the strength of the United States. It does not disclose its staff, but says its executives have “decades of combined experience in energy, infrastructure, finance and international project development.” Despite this, the company does not seem to have implemented to date infrastructure projects of a similar scale to what is being planned in the Balkans.
Binal and Flynn are not the only ones in Trump’s circle to have shown an interest in Bosnia. Joe Flynn’s brother Michael Flynn — a former US intelligence chief whose conviction for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia was overturned following a presidential pardon granted by Trump in 2020 — has campaigned in support of Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik.
In October, the United States lifted sanctions against Milorad Dodik, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, who is accused of undermining the 1995 peace deal that ended the country’s three-year war that killed more than 100,000 people.
In April, Donald Trump Jr., who runs the family business empire, visited Banja Luka, the largest city in the autonomous Republika Srpska within Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Although neither he nor Michael Flynn appear to be directly involved in the pipeline project, Milorad Dodik has openly expressed his support for the project.
