The head of the EU Delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Johann Sattler, says that there is no more room for talks on the reform of the country's election law and that general elections will certainly be held in October as provided for under the law currently in force.

Our wish was to improve the election law with regard to combating corruption and the integrity package. This package to improve the integrity of the election process could pass parliamentary procedure in the next few weeks, but there is a legal basis that applied in the previous election cycle and there is a legal framework for the conduct of elections, Sattler told OBN television in an interview.

He called on citizens to vote in the elections, which are expected to be called on 2 October as provided for in the present election law. The Central Election Commission should call the elections by 4 May. There is a theoretical chance of the election law being amended by then, but the amendments would need to be adopted by the state parliament.

Commenting on the speculation that a new attempt to reach an agreement might be made in April, Sattler said that was not logical after all such attempts had failed in the last ten months. He said that the EU would be pleased to invite Bosnia and Herzegovina's leaders to Brussels to finalise such an agreement, but there was no agreement in sight.

The leader of the predominantly Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA), Bakir Izetbegovic, told N1 television that there was no point in starting a new round of talks now, adding that problems in Bosniak-Croat relations would be discussed after the elections in October.

The talks failed because the leading Bosnian Croat and Bosniak parties could not agree on the method of electing members of the state presidency and members of the ethnic-based upper house of the Federation entity parliament.