Organized by the Office of the Member of the European Parliament Tomislav Sokol, the Croatian Statehood Pledge Foundation, and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the conference “European Union (EU) enlargement – can Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) be a new success story” was held in Zagreb.
Sokol said that it should be impossible for usurpers without real electoral legitimacy to ever be elected as false representatives of the Croatian people in the BiH Presidency, Klix.ba reports.
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In his presentation, talking about the European perspective of BiH, this Member of the European Parliament pointed out that the Croats are the only ones with a pro-European orientation. He said that part of the political elite of one nation looks towards Moscow, probably alluding to the Serbs, while the political elites of Bosniaks look towards Ankara.
“In a situation in which a large part of the political elite of one constituent people looks towards Ankara, and the other towards Moscow, the Croats, being the fewest, are exactly the pro-European and pro-Western anchor without which BiH cannot survive. The story of the Croats in BiH is the story of the centuries-long struggle for equality and continuous efforts to explain to the International Community why only true equality of all three peoples is the guarantee of the long-term survival of BiH. Unfortunately, a large part of the International Community did not always look favorably on the resolution of the Croatian issue, partly thanks to the political discourse that came from Croatia itself, especially at the beginning of the 2000s,” said Sokol.
Nevertheless, this member of the European Parliament says that today the situation is significantly different and that the Croatian government is actively working and is actively involved in political events in BiH.
“This Croatian government, like none before, is engaged in the issue of establishing true equality of Croats in BiH as a necessary precondition for the stabilization of this entire area,” said Sokol and emphasized the positive significance of recent decisions by High Representative Schmidt.
In his speech, Sokol also referred to the problem of, as he says, illegitimate representatives of the Croatian people in the BiH Presidency. He was undoubtedly referring to the election of Zeljko Komsic to the BiH Presidency, which is the next political goal that Croatia obviously intends to tackle.
“It is especially important to find a permanent solution, in accordance with the best European practices, which will make it impossible for usurpers without real electoral legitimacy to ever be elected as false representatives of the Croatian people in the Presidency of the State. This will be the most difficult test to see which political actors want the long-term survival and prosperity of BiH in the community of European nations,” concluded Sokol.
