If Milorad Dodik, the BiH Presidency member, hypothetically, declared the independence of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity and if Russia recognized it, Dragan Covic, the leader of the strongest Croat Party in Bosnia (Croat Democratic Union – HDZ BiH) said he would not support him, because such a move would be unconstitutional.

“Dodik can’t do that. I wouldn’t support that. That would be contrary to the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. How could I support that,” Covic asked N1’s Amir Zukic adding that “BiH is, above all, our responsibility” and that it can only be a European country.

In his opinion, Bosnia has missed an earlier opportunity to get closer to EU and NATO accession.

Speaking about political partners, the HDZ BiH leader said that Bakir Izetbegovic, the leader of the Bosniak centre-right Democratic Action Party (SDA) is a bigger partner than Milorad Dodik, the leader of the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska entity, because he lives with Izetbegovic in the Federation (FBiH) entity.

“But whether it is a partnership or a coalition – we can talk about that. Personally, I think we missed a great opportunity to activate our Partnership for Peace, we should have received the candidate status and joined NATO more intensively,” said Dragan Covic, adding that the stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina is primarily the responsibility of internal structures and not outside factors.

According to Covic, only irresponsible Bosniak policies can make someone think in the way of advocating for Herceg-Bosna, a self-declared wartime Bosnian Croat political structure established by Croat nationalists.

He added that the current organization of government in the FBiH is dysfunctional.

“We now have ten cantons, eleven governments and parliaments in the Federation. Why do we need all this together? We can arrange it completely differently,” he said. “Why don't we create three federal units in the Federation and solve everything,” Covic suggested, adding that they would not be ethnic federal units.

The HDZ BiH leader said that the Croat National Assembly, an organisation bringing together most Croat parties from the country defined their priorities in a recent meeting.

“First of all, we want to resolve the issue of the Election Law, the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, the Constitutional Court, to integrate them into our Election Law, and possibly change the Constitution a little for the purposes of that Election Law. If we succeed, we are out of the crisis. Then we need to look for the improvement of relations between ourselves, to accelerate economic opportunities.

When asked if Dodik’s moves of creating parallel institutions in the RS entity and thus undermining the country’s constitutional order, is not the basic and primary crisis in the country, Covic responded by saying:

“It seems to me that we need to understand what BiH is and that everyone perceives it the way they wanted to make it 30 years ago. When [parties from] Sarajevo brutally and radically advocate for the creation of a civic state – there is a clear intention behind it to create a unitary state. There is no doubt that the SDA absolutely advocates this. And I am afraid that unknowingly, others are also slowly following this, they have become prisoners of what the SDA is demanding. This can be seen through the negotiations we conducted [on amendments to the Election Law]. Personally, I think that the separatism that is sometimes advocated for is as harmful as unitarism,” Covic concluded.