Dragan Covic needed seven days to give up on the Constitution and return to the old pattern of dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
Covic’s latest turn looks like this: on November 14th, after an HDZ session, the leader of that party stated that it is “senseless to talk about a third entity, because it is not in line with the Constitution.”
Only seven days later, at the commemoration of 30 years of the Dayton Peace Agreement in Mostar, a completely different story comes from the same mouth – about “consociational federalism” and three entities as a model for the future arrangement of BiH.
In the meantime, the Constitution has not changed. Only the political interest and the audience being addressed have changed.
Seven days, two opposing messages
The chronology matters because it shows that this is not some minor correction of a statement, but essentially opposing messages.
November 14th – after an HDZ session, Covic says it is senseless to even discuss a third entity, because it is “not in line with the Constitution of BiH.” He emphasizes that all possibilities offered by the existing Dayton framework must be exhausted. The message is clear: a third entity is both politically and legally an unrealistic topic.
November 22nd – at a ceremony in Mostar, the same politician says that it has “for a long time” been necessary to change the Constitution of BiH in order to ensure equality of the three peoples through something he calls “consociational federalism.” As a solution, he offers three entities, stating that in that way, balance and stability of the state would be achieved. He sees negotiations with the European Union (EU) as a platform on which such a change could be incorporated into the future constitutional order of BiH.
Within the span of seven days, Covic thus manages to define the third entity both as “senseless” and “unconstitutional,” but also as a desirable model of future arrangement. That is not a question of nuance, but an open contradiction.
What the Constitution of BiH actually says
The Constitution of BiH, contained in Annex IV of the Dayton Agreement, is very clear: BiH is organized as a state consisting of two entities – the Federation of BiH (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS). The status of the Brcko District is additionally defined through later amendments and arbitration decisions, but in no part is the existence of a third entity mentioned.
Therefore, any talk of a BiH with three entities is not a minor reform, but a radical change of the fundamental constitutional architecture. It implies a formal change of the Constitution by a two-thirds majority in the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH (PABiH), a political agreement across entity and national lines, and a factual willingness to open the Dayton Peace Agreement.
That is why Covic’s statement of November 14th – that it is senseless to talk about a third entity because it is “unconstitutional” – was correct. The problem is that seven days later, he behaves as if he never made that statement, and as if it were enough to proclaim three entities an “European model” so that constitutional law simply ceases to apply.
The EU path and three entities – two different directions
Even more problematic is the fact that the story of three entities is wrapped in a narrative about the European path of BiH. Covic said in Mostar that negotiations with the EU could serve as a platform for restructuring the state into three entities, allegedly for the sake of efficiency and balance among the peoples.
However, official EU documents say something completely different.
In the Opinion of the European Commission on BiH’s membership application, it is clearly stated that the Constitution and the electoral system of BiH contain elements of discrimination and that they need to be changed so that all citizens – regardless of ethnic affiliation – can participate equally in political life, in line with the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (Sejdic-Finci, Zornic, Pilav, Slaku, Baralija…).
In its latest reports, the Commission repeats the same messages: the priorities are depoliticizing ethnic quotas where they produce discrimination, strengthening individual rights, and the rule of law and functional state institutions.
In other words, the EU is asking BiH for fewer ethnic barriers and fewer connections between territory, ethnic affiliation, and political rights, not the introduction of new ethnic entities. Advocating three entities as a European model means either not understanding the European legal framework or consciously trying to sell an old ethno-territorial matrix as something it is not.
An outdated platform for preserving power, wrapped as “equality”
If Covic’s story is brought down to earth, beneath terms like “consociational federalism” and “balance among the three peoples” lies a very old and very simple platform: to preserve and, if possible, increase the existing levers of power of ethnonational elites, and present all that as a struggle for the equality of peoples.
In that sense, the story of a third entity reveals itself as an outdated, roughly ethno-territorial matrix from the nineties, awkwardly repackaged into a more modern vocabulary. While Strasbourg and Brussels have been saying for years that BiH must reduce ethnic barriers and open the political system to all citizens, regardless of ethnic label, here, a new ethnic boundary is still being drawn as an alleged condition for stability.
It is especially ironic that all this is being done in the name of the “endangered Croatian people,” although cold numbers show that Croats in BiH have institutional weight significantly greater than their share of the population.
According to the 2013 census, Croats make up about 15.4% of the population of BiH.
At the same time, in the most important state and entity bodies, the situation looks like this:
The Presidency of BiH has three members: one Bosniak and one Croat elected from the territory of the FBiH, and one Serb from the territory of RS. Croats, therefore, have one-third of the collective head of state permanently reserved. In addition, HDZ has for years not problematized the very fact that the seat is constitutionally reserved for a Croat, but insists that only that Croat is “legitimate” who comes from the political bloc gathered around HDZ. Every time voters elect a candidate of Croatian nationality from another party, as in the case of Zeljko Komsic, that position is declared “taken” and “imposed.” In that way, the demand for “equality” becomes a demand for the practical monopoly of one party over a constitutionally reserved function, and political pluralism is denied even within the Croatian corpus itself.
In the House of Peoples of the PABiH, there are 15 delegates: five Bosniaks, five Croats, and five Serbs. Again, the Croatian caucus has one-third of the seats, the same as the Bosniak and Serb ones, regardless of the demographic ratio.
In the House of Peoples of the FBiH, the Croatian and Bosniak caucuses have the same number of delegates, with a very strong veto-capacity on all key decisions, which was further emphasized after the recent interventions of the High Representative in the election rules.
This is, objectively, disproportionate institutional representation in relation to demographic weight, the result of a political decision to place the three “constituent peoples” in a formally equal position, regardless of size. The Venice Commission, in its opinions, points to this precisely as the source of “distortions” between the principle of equal representation of constituent peoples and the principle of proportionality of the population.
In itself, that arrangement can be legitimate. What makes it problematic is the fact that, despite all these levers, the Croatian political elite persistently presents itself as completely disenfranchised – and sees the solution not in more responsible use of existing power, but in drawing a new ethnic unit.
When all that is combined with the situation on the ground in the so-called “Croatian areas” – the mass departure of young people, poor infrastructure, party control of public enterprises, clientelism and a sense of hopelessness – it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this political project primarily serves to preserve the power of those who already have it, while the people in whose name it is spoken are mostly a means in that story, not the goal.
The third entity, in the way Covic is advocating it today, therefore resembles less a serious vision of a future constitutional order, and more an outdated pattern of governance: first secure as many ethnic levers of power as possible, and then through the story of “equality” explain why all that is supposedly in the interest of those who can barely make ends meet.
A double attitude towards the international community
Another detail from the Mostar speech openly shows the nature of this political platform: the attitude towards the international community.
On that occasion, Covic said that the Office of the High Representative (OHR) “should have left BiH long ago” and that it is time for domestic politicians to take responsibility. At the same time, he added that if domestic actors do not reach an agreement on his model of three entities, they will be “forced to seek help from international partners.”
In other words, the international community is undesirable and a “tutor” when it insists on the rule of law, court judgments, and limiting ethno-political experiments, but is very welcome as an instance when it should serve as a bulldozer for a preferred political solution that domestic politicians cannot or do not want to agree on.
That is not a principled stance on sovereignty, but an extremely selective attitude: only that international assistance which works in favor of a narrow political project is acceptable. Everything else is “imposition.”
A third entity as constant blackmail, not a real plan
This, of course, is not the first time that the story of a third entity returns to the political scene when additional pressure is needed.
In 2021, Covic said in an interview that if he had wanted a third entity, he “would already have gotten a third entity,” suggesting that it is a card he can pull out whenever he wants.
Earlier, he connected the third entity with the alleged “irresponsible policy of the Bosniaks,” suggesting that precisely such a policy would “produce” a third entity. On the other hand, he also knew how to say that “others are constantly talking about a third entity, not the Croats who should supposedly care about it,” trying to distance himself from the idea when that suits international interlocutors.
The pattern is always the same. When he needs to be a “constructive partner” in government, the third entity is “senseless” or “not a topic.” When negotiating the position around the Election Law, the distribution of functions or current coalitions needs to be strengthened – the third entity returns as a serious option or a latent threat.
The Mostar speech fits perfectly into that pattern. The third entity resembles more a permanent blackmail and political prop than a serious constitutional-legal project.
Who actually bears responsibility?
Perhaps the real question is: if three entities are the only way for Croats to be truly equal, what has been done over the past twenty-plus years within the existing system in which HDZ has so much power?
HDZ has been continuously part of the government in the FBiH and at the state level for almost two decades, with a dominant position in cantons and municipalities with a Croatian majority. It has enormous influence over public enterprises, educational and health institutions, and the cultural and media system in those areas.
If, despite all that, Croatian citizens are still massively leaving the country, and key areas stagnate or decline, it is difficult to seriously claim that the main problem is the lack of an entity. It is much more logical to conclude that the problem is the way the existing political power is used, not that it is allegedly insufficient.
Of course, Covic does not talk about that in his appearances. It is much easier to explain everything with a “never realized” third entity than to take responsibility for the situation in the real communities you govern.
What would be a real “European step forward” for BiH?
A state that, thirty years after the war, is still primarily dealing with maps of entities and “internal rearrangements,” instead of fighting corruption, strengthening the judiciary, and improving the quality of life, is not a state that is seriously moving toward the EU – it is a state circling around its traumatic past.
A real European step forward for BiH would be: a Constitution and electoral system that reduce, not increase, discrimination; institutions that function without constant ethnic blockades; a judiciary that does not distribute cases along party lines; public enterprises that are not party spoils; and political elites who deal with schools, hospitals, and jobs, not new ethnic maps.
A third entity – in any of the variants that have been shyly or openly mentioned in recent years – does not solve any of these problems. On the contrary, it is another layer of concrete over the same crack: it entrenches the ethnic frameworks in which every responsibility dissolves into collective narratives of “endangerment.”
Between the “senseless” and the brutally honest
If one had to choose between Covic’s two sentences within seven days, the one from November 14th – that it is senseless to talk about a third entity because it is not in line with the Constitution – is closer to the legal and political reality of BiH.
What he said seven days later in Mostar is closer, however, to the truth about the political platform: that it is an outdated, repeatedly repackaged matrix of preserving power, in which “equality of peoples” is above all a slogan hiding a struggle for additional levers of power, not genuine concern for the everyday life of people – Croats, Bosniaks, Serbs and everyone else – who are leaving this country regardless of which nation they formally belong to.
In that story, the third entity is not a solution. It is a symptom. A symptom of a politics that has never learned that equality of peoples does not mean endlessly drawing borders, but building institutions in which no citizen suffers because they have the “wrong” name or political affiliation, Klix.ba writes.
