Yet another meeting on changes to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Election Law has failed. After almost five hours of talks, the leaders of all major parties in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity failed to reach an agreement. They agreed to call on the Venice Commission to help them with the issue.

The leaders of all major FBiH parties met with the Head of the EU Delegation to Bosnia Lars-Gunnar Wigemark and the US Ambassador to Bosnia Maureen Cormack to try to reach an agreement on amendments to Bosnia’s Election Law, after the Constitutional Court issued a verdict two years ago, deleting several articles from the Election Law due to unequal representation of peoples in the House of Peoples of FBiH.

The Democratic Action Party's (SDA) Leader Bakir Izetbegovic said after the meeting that the Venice Commission will join the talks on the solution to the issue of Bosnia’s Election Law.

“There was no progress, we worked on the harmonization of our points of view. The atmosphere was good and there were attempts to reach an agreement. The Venice Commission will be engaged, especially on some elements related to the European standards,” Izetbegovic said. “This can be resolved by October 5th. The general election is coming and amendments can be expected by the beginning of October. The Commission will be engaged in the next 10 days.”

The Venice Commission is an advisory body of the Council of Europe, composed of independent experts in the field of constitutional law. He added that this is not the end and that the issue remains open until the general election.

“No one had changed their earlier attitudes towards this issue, with the exception of the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) who are insisting that the issue of the Presidency members’ election should also be resolved,” Izetbegovic added.

The Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) Leader Nermin Niksic said that there was no spectacular progress.

“This was my first time to take part in these talks and these talks were held in a pleasant atmosphere. HDZ BiH insisted that we resolve the issue of Bosnia's Presidency members’ election,” Niksic said.

The Alliance for Better Future’s (SBB) representative Damir Arnaut spoke of the role of the Venice Commission.

“I know that the Venice Commission can't say that a representative of one nation can't be elected from some other part of FBiH or some other nation. This is one of the fundamental principles of the European Convention on Human Rights. This will surely preserve the right of every representative of any nation to be elected on any part of FBiH’s territory,” Arnaut said.

Zeljko Komsic, the Democratic Front’s (DF) Leader, said that the Venice Commission will not provide a model for resolution of the issue of amending the Election Law, but that it could provide a substantiated opinion on whether some solutions violate human rights or not.  

“The people from the European Commission have promised their technical assistance, they will contact the Venice Commission. The most probable model of work will be that the experts will come, hear the views and concrete proposals of the parties and then provide their opinion,” Komsic said.  

When asked if there would be any changes to Bosnia's Election Law, Komsic said he wished he was wrong, but that it appears to him that it is highly unlikely that such a thing would happen.  

The issue with the election of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency members concerns the election of one Presidency member coming from one of three constituent peoples in Bosnia, by the residents who are members of other two constituent peoples.