Željana Zovko

Objavljeno: 18.5.2017.

Resolution of the European Parliament on Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted

Strasbourg, 15 February 2017 – The Resolution of the European Parliament on Bosnia and Herzegovina was adopted at today’s plenary session in Strasbourg with 496 votes to 132, with 67 abstentions. The adopted Resolution is a huge success not only for the European People’s Party headed by the rapporteur Cristian Dan Preda, but also for the Croatian MEPs whose amendments were accepted and included into the final text of the Resolution.

The Members to the European Parliament welcomed by the Resolution the progress of BiH made in the implementation of the Reform Programme 2015-2018 and decisiveness of the country to pursue institutional and socio-economic reforms.

The Resolution obliges Bosnia and Herzegovina to meet certain institutional conditions, if it wishes to become a successful candidate for EU membership and appeals to the political leaders to work on introduction of necessary changes, including the reform of the Election Law, taking into account the principles of federalism, decentralisation and legitimate representation, stressed by previous resolutions.

The Resolution regrets that many rulings of the Constitutional Court have not been implemented and particularly stresses the most recent ruling on the principle of constitutivity and equality of all three constituent nations to elect their legal political representatives on the basis of justified and proportional representation in the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation of BiH.

The Resolution also regrets that the citizens of Mostar have been deprived of their democratic right to elect their local representatives at three elections in sequence and calls for swift implementation of the Constitutional Court ruling on the City of Mostar by introducing changes to the Election Law and the Statute of the City of Mostar. The Resolution strongly condemns the unacceptable violence at the elections in Stolac and urges the competent authorities to resolve the situation by observing the rule of law.

Furthermore, concern was expressed about the cases of placing the political pressure on journalists, appealing to competent authorities to guarantee media pluralism and secure programme in all official languages of BiH.

The MEP Željana Zovko said at the plenary session: “The Parliament showed through the previous resolutions that the only integrating factor bringing peace and security to Bosnia and Herzegovina was federalism, and not unitarism or separatism.

“Federalism is a “mean path” which the country has to take in order to put an end to the two-decade long search for a suitable model for reconciling the three communities, which had gone through the war and have been looking for a common future, in which their differences shall be duly respected.“ – as of Zovko.

Changes to the Election Law based on the principle of federalism and legitimate representation is the very first step on the way to restoring trust and stability and putting an end to the situation in which political representatives of one nation may be elected by voters from other nation’s corpus. She called for the implementation of the Constitutional Court ruling, which shall restore democracy into the local community, as it is the case in Mostar.

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