The most important thing for all Bosnian citizens is that they finally have some good news regarding the government and that the previous cooperation with NATO is not compromised, Lazar Prodanovic, a delegate in the State House of Peoples told N1 on Tuesday.
“The Alliance of Independent Social Democrats’ (SNSD) position is that we'll respect the agreement and that the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) and the Democratic Action Party (SDA) will do the same. Now it's up to Bosnia's Presidency to suggest the candidate for the Council of Ministers and the House of Representatives to appoint that candidate,” Prodanovic said who is a member of the SNSD.
The leaders of the three main national, ethnic-oriented parties, the SDA, SNSD and the HDZ BiH signed an agreement Monday on the principles for the formation of the government in Bosnia after the October 2018 general election.
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The reason why the government was still not formed is the level of cooperation with NATO and Bosnia's accession to this alliance.
Namely, the Croat and Bosniak sides agree that Bosnia should join the Alliance, while the Serb side rejects the idea. They even adopted a resolution on the military neutrality of Bosnia's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity saying they would follow Serbia's lead on this.
Furthermore, since the appointment of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Bosnia's de-facto government and the prime minister is based on a rotational system where after each election, the winning party from one of each of the three constituent peoples designates their candidate, representing one of the peoples. This time it was the SNSD's turn, which is the strongest Serb party in the country.
Their candidate, Zoran Tegeltija, submitted his draft programme for the term in which he said he would not focus on Bosnia's NATO cooperation. This sparked outrage among Bosniak and part of Croat parties, resulting in the Bosniak and Croat members of the country's tripartite Presidency to reject his appointment until he includes the NATO cooperation into his work programme.
“It's important that the previous cooperation with NATO was not compromised, all processes will be carried out as defined by the Constitution and laws. We will jointly come to an acceptable solution,” Prodanovic said.
The signatories also agree that the international administrator, known as the High Representative, who was installed after the 1992-95 war to ensure the implementation of the peace agreement has to be abolished, arguing that the country can not expect to become an EU member while having a foreign governor.
When it comes to the abolition of the Office of the High Representative, he said his SNSD was clear about this all the time. What is left for them to do is to fulfil certain conditions for its closure, because only then will Bosnia be able to get the EU candidate status.
