Brussels, 11 April 2017 – Members of the EP Foreign Affairs Committee at the European Parliament exchanged views today with the BiH Foreign Affairs Minister Igor Crnadak and UN High Representative to BiH Valentin Inzko.
MEP Željana Zovko asked the BiH Foreign Affairs Minister Crnadak whether the ruling of the Constitutional Court of BiH from last December related to the changes to the Election Law shall be implemented on time and whether all stakeholders were duly urged to timely implement the ruling. Furthermore, Zovko asked the Minister to give his comments about the recently adopted Resolution of the European Parliament, which stressed the issues such as the mentioned ruling of the Constitutional Court of BiH, changes to the Statute of the City of Mostar and pluralism in media, resp., transmission of TV programme in all official languages of BiH.
In the discussion with Valentin Inzko, Zovko asked about the Election Law and implementation of the Constitutional Court ruling. Following his earlier review about a successful period in BiH when it came to implementation of reforms, such as reform of defence and intelligence service, Zovko drew his attention to the fact that it was possible to implement reform of defence in 2003, when BiH Croats had their legitimately elected member of the Presidency, capable of implementing this key reform of defence for BiH and establish the Ministry of Defence and intelligence service at the state level. She furthermore reminded Inzko that it was for his own decision that the Platform was established in the Federation in 2011.
Zovko warned about a crisis which might escalate unless the changes to the Election Law were adopted. If the new Election Law is not passed before the general elections in 2018, further instability shall be created and new decisions by the High Representative shall be called for.
“Such balance is simply a must if we want to have a stabile Bosna and Herzegovina. BiH Croats must be represented in governmental bodies by legitimate representatives. Therefore, I am appealing to you to join forces with all stakeholders to come to this compromise.“ – added Zovko.