Failure to reach an agreement on amendments to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Election Law during last night’s talks was the topic of discussion with Nikola Spiric, Deputy Leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats.
During last night’s five-hour talks between the leaders of all major parties in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity on the on hand and the Head of the EU Delegation to Bosnia Lars-Gunnar Wigemark and the US Ambassador to Bosnia Maureen Cormack on the other, interlocutors failed to reach an agreement on amendments to Bosnia's Election Law.
Namely, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued a verdict two years ago, deleting several articles from the Election Law due to unequal representation of constituent peoples in the House of Peoples of FBiH.
Spiric said that the lack of reactions from the Serb dominated Republika Srpska (RS) entity, concerning changes to the Election Law leaves room for international intervention via the Venice Commission which will now be engaged in this process.
“The story of the Venice Commission is not something new in Bosnia, and from our earlier experiences, we know that this advisory body to the Council of Europe can’t impose their opinions until the local politicians adopt them or until their opinions are imposed by the international community,” Spiric said. “The Democratic Action Party (SDA) has been insisting that the Office of the High Representative, which oversees the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement, that ended the war in Bosnia, imposes the solution to this problem, and they are about to get their way, now.”
He recalled that the Bosniak policy, especially the policy of SDA, has been based on constant requests for international community’s interventions in solving their problems.
“This is yet another example which shows that Bosnia is not an independent state and that the only thing that is stable within its borders is RS. As far as I could tell, the interlocutors of these talks are now calling on RS and its legal solutions as the only functional solutions,” he added.
Spiric concluded that every previously imposed decision gave no results and that lasting solutions can only be found through dialogue, which is something the foreign officials should know.
