Respecting the Constitution is crucial, said newly appointed Chairman of Bosnia and Herzegovina's tripartite Presidency, Milorad Dodik, addressing the media on Thursday. He stressed the work will have to be done as the Constitution says and not as someone wants.
Recovery of Bosnian economy and establishing the full sovereignty of the country strictly in line with the Dayton peace treaty and its Annex 4, which is Bosnia's Constitution, were in focus of the first press conference the Serb representative in the Presidency held after assuming the office on November 20.
“Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of two entities and three peoples. Republika Srpska (entity) gave its territory to Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as some competencies,” he emphasised adding he will demand that everything is done as the Constitution says and not as someone wants.
Dodik also reiterated his stance accusing the international community's high representatives in Bosnia of “carrying out the international violence.” According to him, everything these officials did in Bosnia was opposite to the Annex 10 of the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA), part of the treaty regulating their work.
The Dayton treaty is a document that ended the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and established the country's government system. The high representative was appointed to oversee its implementation.
The treaty also divided the country into two semi-autonomous entities, Republika Srpska (RS) and Federation (FBiH), each having its own government and electing their respective representatives in the state-level institutions. The entities among other officials elected the Presidency members, the Serb in RS, while the Bosniak and the Croat are elected in FBiH.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is sustainable only without the presence of the High Representative, said Dodik, the Serb Presidency member who was the first in the line of three Presidency members to take the rotating chairmanship in the new term.
Speaking of his plan of work, the Serb leader stressed he would be implementing the politics of “clean slates.”
“I want the Presidency to apply the Annex 4 of the Dayton Peace Agreement – the Constitution,” he underlined.
Protecting the country's economy is of huge importance, according to Dodik.
“Interventionism has brought Bosnia and Herzegovina to the situation of being a favourable market for the countries surrounding it. Owing to bad privatisations, Bosnia and Herzegovina and its entities created a poor economy which is not competitive,” said the Presidency Chairman.
He announced proposing a series of new measures to protect the country's economy.
“The World Trade Organisation is allowing it, regardless of membership. Only the previous elites were not ready to protect the economy,” he stressed.
Also, according to Dodik, fiscal and monetary changes are the way to make the country sovereign and able to manage its monetary policy.
“If the Bosniaks, the Serbs and the Croats want to maintain a Dayton-based Bosnia and Herzegovina, then they should protect their production,” he added.
