A group of some 10 veterans gathered in front of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity Parliament in the early Monday morning, awaiting the news on the date and time of the session of both houses of Parliament.

According to N1’s Aida Hadzimusic, the veterans said that unless the sessions are scheduled and the Law on the Rights of Veterans is adopted and harmonised, they will block the entire FBiH entity.

Earlier they said they would come to the Parliament, Monday, in order to request a meeting with the authorities, primarily with Jasenko Tufekcic, the Head of the Commission for the Harmonisation of the Law on the Rights of Veterans and to request concrete information on when the Law would be submitted to parliamentary procedure.

The number of veterans is expected to grow during the day as they await the news on the sessions.

The Head of the Commission for the Harmonisation of the Law on the Rights of Veterans told N1 that the Commission’s session will be held on Thursday, when the FBiH Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Speakers and Deputy Speakers of both Houses will attend the session in order to discuss the Law adoption and to schedule the date of the sessions of both houses of Parliament.

“What I can say, as the Head of the Commission, is that we’ve been working on finding the best solution to this problem the whole time. We’ve scheduled a session for Thursday and we’ll see what will happen then,” Tufekcic said.

He noted that he does not expect any big protests to take place, adding that they are all on the same side and that protests will not achieve anything.

Drago Grbavac, Head of the Association “Forgotten veterans” told N1 that “people will exit the streets” because the Commission for Harmonization of the Law on the Rights of Veterans was not scheduled for tomorrow, but for Thursday.

”This means that people will exit the streets. As you can see, that’s just one of the reasons. I don’t think there’s any reason why the session could not be held tomorrow,” Grabovac noted.

The FBiH entity House of Peoples adopted on July 26, the Draft Law on the Rights of Veterans and Members of their Families in the form adopted by the FBiH Government.

The House of Peoples did not adopt the amendments which were earlier adopted by the House of Representatives, which the FBiH Government also rejected. This means that the two houses will have to align the adopted versions of the Law at one of the following sessions.

 The said law fulfilled all the demands earlier stated by the veterans, which are the publication of the single veterans’ registry, the abolition of the financing of veterans’ associations, and the right to have a veterans’ allowance.