Miro Lazovic, a member of the DF Presidency and former Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, appeared on "Pressing" to discuss 29 years since the Dayton Peace Agreement. He emphasized that while the agreement stopped the war, it entrenched political divisions with no end in sight.

Reflecting on the early days of Dayton, Lazovic noted, “In 1995, the priority was to stop the war—that was the key value of the Dayton Agreement. We knew even then that it wasn’t an ideal solution, especially Annex 4, which is the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We were assured by Holbrooke that we would only have to live with it for about 10 years, and then the time would come for changes.”

He pointed out the missed opportunity with the “April Package” in 2006, which aimed to make constitutional changes. “If they had taken a rational approach, the April Package could have changed a lot,” he said, lamenting its failure due to a lack of flexibility on key provisions.

Although optimistic about Bosnia’s future, Lazovic admitted that the country today is deeply divided, not the unified state envisioned in the 1992 referendum. “Today, Bosnia is divided ethnically and by entity, institutions are inefficient, and societal bonds are broken. Still, I remain optimistic that Bosnia and Herzegovina will overcome both internal and external challenges,” he concluded.