“At the session of the House of Peoples we were supposed to adopt a number of laws related to European integration, salaries and trade union demands. We were also expected to ratify several agreements and adopt decisions”, said Dragan Čović, Deputy Chairman of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after today’s session was interrupted due to the lack of quorum.
Čović said that once again there had been attempts to influence the agenda by changing it, even though it had already been agreed upon.
“We tried to ask all colleagues to work with their caucuses so that around 100 agenda items that had been harmonized could be discussed today. We also attempted to include the request of a group of police unions, employees of the Indirect Taxation Authority and our civil servants, as a separate agenda item and hold an extraordinary session on the matter. While respecting the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure, we will have to recognize the need to reach agreements on all issues,” Čović said.
He stressed that Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot function on what he described as an “anarchy of partnership”, but that the partnership must be aligned in order to secure sufficient majorities within the legislative and executive authorities so that decisions can be made.
“At this moment we do not have that. It is therefore not unusual that in the past year and a half we first had a break of almost nine months due to one of the requests raised in this parliament, precisely by those who constitute a minority within the Serb caucus, when the law on the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina was being discussed. Afterwards, there have evidently been alternating attempts to provoke a situation like the one we have today by proposing additions to the agenda,” he said.
Čović also addressed the situation at BHRT, emphasizing that in his view the public broadcaster should function normally.
“It was necessary, through the Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Ministers, to adopt a law clearly defining these relations and to ensure funding so that the employees working there could live normally. Unfortunately, all of this has been undermined, including through the activities we are conducting here in the House of Peoples. We should have understood that this is one of the vital issues for Bosnia and Herzegovina. A public broadcasting service at the state level, yet we have not exchanged a single word about it,” Čović said.
He added that in this way the Growth Plan and its elements will never reach the House of Peoples, but expressed confidence that the Chairwoman of the Council of Ministers will again include the Growth Plan on the agenda at the next session.
