EU member Croatia has angered Bosnia by making a last-minute decision to block four Bosnian EU-certified dairy producers from exporting products to the European Union.

The move shocked Bosnian officials and farmers, some of whom are threatening a trade war unless the issue is swiftly resolved.

After painstaking preparations, four of Bosnia’s top dairy producers obtained permission earlier this month to export to the EU.

But when the first shipments were about to be sent to the European market earlier this week they were stopped from entering Croatia under the explanation that one EU member state had complained.

Speaking from the West Balkans Summit in Vienna on Thursday, Bosnian Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Minister Mirko Sarovic confirmed that this complaint came from Croatia.

Sarovic said that Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic had confirmed this to him during the summit in Vienna, but had failed to provide any concrete explanation.

“We will consult with the relevant authorities on further moves,” he said. “We stand by the position that we are right and that the European Commission will protect us,” he added.

The EU delegation in Sarajevo said the complaint about Bosnia’s exports of milk to Europe would be discussed in mid-September but warned that milk exports from Bosnia to the EU will be halted until then.

After meeting EU officials on Thursday in Sarajevo, Bosnia’s Veterinary Office said it had demanded that the European Commission swiftly resolve this issue.

“We don’t know what the complaint is about. We fulfilled all the EU conditions,” the director of the Veterinary Office, Ljubomir Kalaba, said.

He added that his office had sent a protest note, citing the fact that Croatia filed its complaint after the deadline for complaints expired.

The Agriculture Ministry of Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated entity in Bosnia, said it was also surprised by the ban as dozens of milk companies in the entity were awaiting approval to export.

An agriculture association from Republika Srpska said imports of milk from Croatia should be banned as well and said that the farmers would block the border with Croatia if the problem is not solved.

“Not only are we surprised but also disappointed. We were expecting security and now we do not know what we have to do to get the [export] permits,” Milan Skundric, a milk producer from Republika Srpska, told the media.

Sarovic confirmed that Bosnian institutions have received requests to impose a reciprocal ban on Croatian milk imports and even on other Croatian goods.

Sarovic said this was not an option at this stage but called the Croatian action unfair. “This does not contribute to the liberalization of the [regional] market,” he said.