High Representative Christian Schmidt passed a decision on Thursday, unblocking the government formation process in Bosnia's Federation entity (FBiH) after a months-long stalemate. Vice President of the Federation entity Refik Lendo, who gave no consent to the proposal of ministerial posts that the Federation President earlier presented, called Schmidt's decision “rude.”

“Schmidt's one-off decision bypassing my signature is rude. I am not sure that people will accept it, but we'll see how the situation unfolds,” Lendo, who is a representative of the SDA party, which is not a part of the parliamentary majority, briefly told N1.

Announcing his decision earlier on Thursday, Schmidt said that no constituent people in the country is being attacked or disrespected with his decision.

“As you know 3 weeks ago we met and I issued a final call to all politicians to resolve the deadlock in government formation process, calling for swift government formation backed by parliamentary majorities. Now nearly seven months after the elections,” Schmidt said.

In these three weeks a lot has happened but nothing has fully changed, the High Representative stressed, reminding that he has received only one proposal for the government formation – the one of the Federation entity president, which was, according to him, in line with the Constitution.

Federation President Lidija Bradara informed the Federation's House of Representatives earlier on Thursday that the list of proposed candidates for the Government has changed and no longer includes the candidates of the SBiH and the NES parties.

The Our Party and the People and Justice (NiP) parties, both a part of the parliamentary majority in the FBiH, welcomed Schmidt's decision, calling for everyone to respect it.