SPD delegate in the German Bundestag, Adis Ahmetovic, spoke in an interview about the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), stressing that the ethnic principle in the country does not work because BiH is in the same situation as it was in the nineties.
”Provide support to BiH on the way to a better future,” is the name of the resolution submitted to the parliamentary procedure by the parties of the German ruling coalition of the SPD, the Greens, and the FDP.
One of the proponents of the resolution, SPD delegate Adis Ahmetovic, believes that the resolution is of historical importance for BiH “because the Bundestag decided to deal with this topic in the first place.”
What is also important, according to Ahmetovic, is that Germany wants to support BiH’s European path in this way as well.
The European way of BiH is currently blocked by HDZ BiH.
Regarding the controversies that have arisen in the public because of the aforementioned resolution, Ahmetovic says that democracy must also withstand controversial discussion.
”We clearly say that the European path for BiH is currently being blocked by the HDZ BiH, their president Dragan Covic, and this is something that may have caused a slightly more negative reaction in the Croatian government because the HDZ is in power there,” says Ahmetovic and adds that this is not only said by Germany, but also by Johann Sattler, the European Union (EU) ambassador to BiH.
In response to the criticism received from his party colleague and member of the Bundestag, Josip Juratovic, who demands that in the resolution, along with Milorad Dodik, president of SNSD, and Dragan Covic, president of HDZ BiH, Bakir Izetbegovic, president of SDA, should also be called by name in the resolution, Ahmetovic says:
”We say clearly that we are against Bosniak, Croatian and Serbian ethnonationalism.”
The ethnic principle did not work
Ahmetovic says that with the resolution he is fighting for a European BiH, criticizing the ethnic principle by which BiH currently functions.
”For the last 27 years, this has been the basis of the BiH political system and what is the result. Politically, that country is in the same state as it was at the beginning of the nineties. We cannot be satisfied with that. This is why I say that the ethnic principle of that state, with its constituent peoples, did not work and that is why there must be a European principle,” Ahmetovic emphasizes.
On the same day, the Bundestag will vote on the resolution, as well as the re-sending of German soldiers to the Althea mission, from which they were withdrawn in 2012.
Ahmetovic says that he has been working on this in recent months because he noticed during his visit to BiH that local politicians use war rhetoric to paralyze the population.
Another reason, he says, is the statement of the Russian ambassador to BiH, Igor Kalabuhov, who said that BiH could end up like Ukraine if it decides to join NATO, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
