If politicians don not soon agree on election law amendments, the upcoming October election in Bosnia may not be legitimate, Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE), Thorbjorn Jagland, warned in an interview with N1 in Zagreb Tuesday.

Jagland commented on a statement by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who warned of the possibility of another war in the Balkans.  

“If we do not open up to countries in that highly complicated and tragic region, and if we do not open up a European perspective to them, we will see war returning to that area as we saw in the 1990s,” Juncker said.  

“Well, hopefully he went too far, because the people in the Western Balkans have had enough of war,” Jagland said, referring to Juncker’s warning. “But there are some worrying signs, in particular in Bosnia and Herzegovina, they are probably heading now for a new election, without having an amendment to the electoral law, which can safeguard representation from the so-called others and which could also reassure the Croat minority in the Federation (FBiH),” he said, referring to the Bosniak-Croat half of the country, one of two semi-autonomous entities in Bosnia. 

Two years ago, the Constitutional Court ruled that some provisions of the Election Law were inconsistent with the state Constitution. Since then the authorities have failed to act in the legally allowed time frame resulting in a further court ruling to delete two sections of the Election Law that treats the matter of representation in the FBiH House of Peoples. Should these representation issues remain unresolved, Bosnia’s October elections might not be legitimate, he warned.  

This would result in a “difficult situation”, Jagland said, as there are also “worrying signs” coming from Republika Srpska (RS), Bosnia’s other, Serb-dominated semi-autonomous entity.

The Council of Europe in Bosnia has been advocating for the issue to be resolved for years, “but nobody has been able to do anything,” Jagland said.  

“We should watch this carefully. And the European institutions should do everything they can in order to get things on the right track,” he stressed.