prijava
SARAJEVO, January 19 (FENA) - Speaker of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the HDZ BiH president, Dragan Čović says that the local elections in the City of Mostar will surely be held this year and that, to date, the dynamics of inter-party talks lead us to believe we can reach agreement on other amendments to the BiH Election Law by the end of the March 2020.
"A lot has changed in the story about the Election Law in the last year, but not in the formal sense that something has been practically agreed. However, it was agreed that the election of 35 councilors in the City Council of the City of Mostar, the election of deputies to the House of Peoples of the FBiH Parliament and the election of two members of the BiH Presidency from the Federation of BiH all should be harmonized.
We hold intensive talks, primarily at the level of the SDA-HDZ and with our partners with whom we are in coalition at the level of BiH and the entities. It seems to me that it is realistic to set a plan by the end of March to finalize the job. First of all, I will say it today, the elections in Mostar 2020 will surely be held.
This problem will be solved, I am certain of it, and within the statutory deadline, before the Central Election Commission announces elections for this year," said Covic in an interview with the Federal News Agency (FENA).
He added that the issue of elections in the City of Mostar should be resolved in together with the House of Peoples in the FBiH and the election of members of the BiH Presidency in order to relax the relations and restore confidence, primarily between the Bosniak and Croat people.
"That is the task of both the HDZ and the SDA, and today we have a rather good dynamic. We'll see how it ends. I am genuinely optimistic that if we continue at the pace we have been taking in the past two months, then there is no reason not to announce to the public in March this year that we have agreed on this part and that we can send it to the parliamentary procedure," Čović said.
He says that the Croat side's requests are fully compatible with the EU's position, and that the goal is to primarily incorporate the decisions of the Constitutional Court, as well as the decisions of the Strasbourg court into the proposal of the Election Law, and that there is no reason not to do the same for the Presidency, the House of Peoples and the City of Mostar.
"The ideas we are talking about, the ideas of federalism, which precisely leans upon the EU as a standard within its member states, is something that completely connects us to the ideas of the European Union. This is the highest level of human rights and freedoms, civil rights in BiH, but we do not underestimate the fact that BiH, including the Federation of BiH, in accordance with one of the decisions of the Constitutional Court, a federation of constituent peoples, and not some other forms.
In other words, the three constituent peoples and those who do not declare themselves as such, are the reality of BiH, and all those who seek to eliminate the role of constitutional equality of the constituent peoples, together with the opportunity of electing their legitimate representatives in those situations where the BiH Constitution prescribes it, are simply on the wrong track and this will not bring stability.
"We will harmonize our proposals with all the declarations and resolutions we received in our communication with representatives of the European institutions," Čović points out.
Regarding the establishment of a new government in the Federation of BiH, he says that there is an ongoing reorganization of the FBiH Government.
"We will most likely group two or three existing ministries into one or two and we will probably form some new ministries defined to fit our agendas. These are primarily demographics, the departure of young people, so it would make sense that we have an entity-level ministry that would focus on that. I believe that by March, we will agree on it, so that the Government may submit proposals for amendments to the law to the Parliament. And then, in the meantime, I hope that by completing the job with the Election Law, we would go into the appointment of a new government in accordance with the new structure," Čović says, adding that it would be impractical to appoint people with the old ministry structure and then remove them in a month or two.
He said the reorganization has been negotiated with the SDA and SBB some three or four years ago, but they did not have the capacity to implement it.
"It seems to me that we can do it today, so I hope that at the end of the first quarter we will have this change made in the structure of the FBiH Government, the Election Law harmonized and the appointed government in the Federation of BiH. It is important to emphasize that the FBiH Government is functioning at full capacity, the structure of the parties will be similar to the current one, and both houses of the FBiH Parliament are functioning at full capacity, as best confirmed by the fact that we adopted the budget for this fiscal year on time. But the old convocation should not be kept and this job should be completed as soon as possible, and it is my estimate that by the end of March, we could have the whole job done," emphasized Čović.
According to Čović, the new state-level government must make up for the lost year, and he believes that by the end of February, the BiH Parliamentary Assembly will take in everything that has come from the Council of Ministers in the last year or two.
"A new dynamic needs to be established at the level of the Council of Ministers, in order for this agenda to have its basic contours on the Euro-Atlantic path. There are some restrictions on the NATO path, but what we have defined with the documents we have signed must be fully respected. When it comes to internal stability, we must live up to the rule of law as such. Social policy must also have its own place, but in order for us to take into account social equality and have a special social policy, we must have a very clearly defined economic policy in BiH, including the investment one. All of this is interconnected," says Čović adding that reform of the electoral legislation is a priority for the Croat people in BiH.
With regard to the appointment of senior officials to SIPA, OSA and other state agencies where executive mandates have expired, Čović points out that the new Council of Ministers has the task of immediately agreeing with the leaders of political parties and h expects that in the coming months, all appointments for which procedures have already been announced would be completed and procedures initiated in accordance with the expiration of the mandates in other institutions.
"I believe think in the next three or four months we will have about twenty institutions in which new representatives will have to be appointed, including members of the Central Election Commission. In the next thirty days, everything should be agreed, not even excluding the possibility of ethnically-based rotations in certain positions," Čović said in an interview with FENA.
Čović believes that rotations on this principle would be desirable, but in case of no possibility of agreement, the current assignment of leadership positions in state institutions and agencies would be retained.
(FENA) S. R.
