Croat National Council backs entity-free Bosnia, Dodik: ‘Leave Republika Srpska alone’

HNV said the proposed model would preserve the unity of the state while granting broad autonomy to the cantons, protecting Bosnia and Herzegovina’s multi-ethnic character and removing institutional blockages stemming from the Dayton constitutional system.

The proposal drew a sharp response from SNSD leader Milorad Dodik.

“Gentlemen, you have your ten cantons and rearrange them as much as you like, but leave Republika Srpska alone,” Dodik wrote on X.

He added that HNV “has no say whatsoever in Republika Srpska.”

HNV said Fehlinger’s proposal is “almost identical” to a constitutional concept adopted by the organisation at the General Assembly of Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina on February 6, 1994.

The organisation said Fehlinger’s plan represents a streamlined version of its 1994 concept because it envisages fewer federal units. HNV also argued that such a model would reduce the size and cost of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s administrative system.

HNV referred to the 1994 Washington Agreement, saying the agreement largely followed the basic concept of HNV’s proposal and contributed to ending the conflict between Bosniaks and Croats, paving the way for the normalisation of their relations.

The organisation described the current Dayton-based system as “irrational and dysfunctional”, arguing that its complex division of powers creates costly layers of government and allows institutions to shift responsibility for unresolved problems between different levels of government.

The Croatian National Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina was established in 1994 during the war as a civic organisation advocating a democratic and multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina. It supported a federal model based on territorial units rather than ethnic entities.

The latest exchange comes amid renewed debate over possible changes to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitutional system, with HNV calling for the abolition of the entities and Dodik firmly rejecting any change to the constitutional status of Republika Srpska.