It is up to political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina to come up with a fair solution for electoral reform and the focus should be on the fulfilment of the Dayton Peace Agreement as it is instead of its revision, the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, told Croatia’s public broadcaster on Tuesday.

Schmidt, who is tasked with overseeing the civilian implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, took over the post as political leaders in BiH are trying to reach an agreement on how to change Bosnia’s election law.

While the European Court of Human Rights ruled the country’s election law is discriminatory towards citizens who do not belong to any of the constituent peoples, Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, Bosnian Croat representatives say it should be changed so that it ensures “legitimate representation” for those major ethnic groups in the country.

“I think this is a task for the responsible people in Bosnia and Herzegovina itself, it’s a constitutional and electoral law discussion. We will, from the international side, just assist, but it’s basically on them to decide,” Schmidt told HRT, adding that he would be happy if BiH politicians would come to an agreement on the matter.

Schmidt said it is now the time to determine “what the feeling of the people is” and how the electorate understands the issue.
“I think we have to just focus on the Dayton Agreement. There were things fixed. There are three constituent peoples. We have in addition the Others – mainly people who are not related to any of these constituent peoples,” he said.

“I think it is not easy to bring it all together, but that work is important,” he added.

Schmidt also commented on statements by the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency, Milorad Dodik, who reiterated that he does not accept Schmidt’s authority and that Bosnia currently does not have a High Representative.

“It is very clear that the international community, the Peace Implementation Council, has nominated me. I’m in office, I’m here, I’m living,” he said, and urged everybody “just to work with facts” as opposed to their ideas of what the world should be like.

“There is a serious challenge” regarding the functionality of BiH institutions, Schmidt said.

“The state depends on basic consent. This does not mean that individual or ethnic identity should be given up, not at all. But it has to be brought together in a joint coordination, as we have experienced this in Europe as a whole. The European Union is nothing else than just managing to get a kind of compromise of different positions,” he said.

As for his position on ideas of revising the Dayton Agreement, Schmidt argued that things should only be revised if there is an idea that there would be something new that is better than what is in place at the moment, he said.

“I don’t see that, under these conditions, actually there is anything to be discussed. We should work on the fulfilment of the Dayton Agreement. And probably, on the way to Brussels, it will just be over when BiH is part of the European Union,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt said that the international community has been present in BiH since the war, but that it focused more on “places where it’s hot, loud and noisy.”

“And this was not the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he explained, adding that, fortunately, one of the successes of the Dayton Peace Agreement is that there is now peace in the country.

However, stability has not been improving significantly in the last ten years, he said, arguing that “we have to turn again and look for improvement and a better situation.”

Schmidt noted that German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, felt that “it would be necessary to have a more intense look on the developments” in the country.

“We want to have preparation for the people to have a better standard of living, a better life, a better possibility to stay in their country,” Schmit said, adding that 70 percent of Bosnia’s youth wants to leave the country.