By: Nevena Šarenac
The EU does not have a concrete proposal for the implementation of the ruling at the European Court for Human Rights in the “Sejdić-Finci” case, but there is a strong attempt to facilitate an agreement, or that the political leaders in BiH parties assist in the consideration of possible solutions for the election of members of the BiH Presidency and Delegates in the BiH House of Peoples, confirmed today in Sarajevo an unnamed EU diplomat.
At the briefing with BiH representatives and the media, he said that the model for a resolution to the implementation of the ruling, of which they spoke about on Friday, 22 March in Brussels at a meeting with party leaders, expects that the BiH Presidency continues to have three members that are chosen from two constituencies, the RS and the FBiH, but with the removal of the national guidelines for the Presidency.
He denied a report that the EU has a concrete proposal to resolve this issue, stating that it has to do with the models that are the result of previous discussions on the implementation of the ruling that the BiH political leaders are conducting with the mediation of the EU Delegation.
He recalled that the EU representatives have so far discussed earlier attempts at implementation, pointing out that they had bilateral meetings with parties that make up the BiH parliamentary majority. They also participated in joint meetings with the ruling six and with SDA on Friday in Brussels.
A senior official of the EU Delegation to BiH believes that all proposals have been discussed in detail, and that several key principles have been identified.
“We proposed the areas where the attitudes of the BiH political leaders are maybe not so far apart from each other’’, he said.
It was noted that the solutions for the election of delegates to the BiH House of Peoples is very possible, since no single party has an opinion that is different from the general attitude.
He stressed that the participants of the meeting agreed to continue to discuss the BiH Presidency as a collective, tripartite body, and that the members of the BiH Presidency must come from different constitutive peoples or from the category of “Others”, with the national guidelines deleted.
“There will continue to be an election of a member of the BiH Presidency from the RS and two from the FBiH. In the FBiH it is necessary to take into account its structure. A model is being considered for a solution that is similar to the current electoral law for the election in the House of Representatives of the Parliament of FBiH or the BiH Parliament with more constituencies, but there is no agreement on the number of constituencies and how many there will be. 10 to 15 constituencies by number of cantons has been mentioned’’, said the unnamed diplomat of the EU Delegation to BiH.
When it comes to the model with 10 or 12 constituencies, he said that there were no significant differences on the number of mandates, but it is about a model by which the electorate carries additional mandates.
“In other words, in each polling unit votes for the election of members of the BiH Presidency would be proportionally transformed into mandates, and then there would be a specific number of mandates awarded to the one who wins in the selected constituency’’, he explained.
Also, he thinks that this type of model is based more on a proportionate principle, and to a lesser extent on the territorial, noting that it reflects the structure of a country and is not specific only to BiH.
He said that this model does not only eliminate discrimination against the “Others” in the election of a member of a BiH Presidency and the in the BiH House of Peoples, but that it also resolves the issue that was placed in front of the European Court by Ilijas Pilav, when as a Bosniak he could not be a candidate for a member of the BiH Presidency in the RS.
Should a discussion continue as it did last year, when other issues, such as the Croatian one, were forgotten, he said that a political agreement could not be achieved because of the required consent of the biggest parties.
“The EU wishes that the implementation of the “Sejdić-Finci” ruling be compatible with European principles and that it ensures a long-term solution, one which includes the resolution of the so-called “Croatian issue”, announced the unnamed source from the EU.
Commenting on the fact that the representatives of certain political parties in BiH, after the meeting in Brussels, tried to develop a discussion that criticized the alleged agreement, the senior official of the EU Delegation to BiH reiterated that there is definitely no agreement because there are many details, including the important ones, that are not harmonized yet.
