Reforms, the budget and everything listed in Schmidt’s report will wait for better relations between the partners of the state coalition. Incomplete, unproductive and unsuccessful – these are the descriptions of yesterday’s meeting of the ruling coalition at the state level. It was held with the aim of reaching an agreement on adopting the budget and rescuing the first tranche of funds from the Growth Plan. Although it is urgent because of the deadlines, there is no agreement.
The state coalition is suddenly together. Leaders on the task of saving the BiH budget. However, there have not been the same positions at the same table for a long time, but there is never a shortage of demands and conditions. So the budget was agreed and conditioned. The SNSD wants to secure the entity’s coffers before the state coffers by insisting on the distribution of money to the entities from excise taxes and VAT.
“It is not only the issue of excise duty, but also the issue of RAK that were on the account, so we agreed to resolve that issue. The most significant part of those funds went to finance BHRT, which we think the worst of. Here they are trying to ‘come on, give us a budget, speed… There is no more speed – what would happen?’, said SNSD president Milorad Dodik.
“It is in no way formally and legally a requirement or a question of the BiH budget,” said SDP president Nermin Nikšić.
But it is a condition for one billion euros from the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans.
“If we want to get funds or access the funds that are given for this area of the Western Balkans, we cannot do it without a budget,” said HDZ BiH President Dragan Čović.
Since we are doing everything half-heartedly, the Reform Plan for the growth plan is not complete either. Three are missing. And the wall again.
“One of them is to give up the veto at the decision-making level of BiH, which we cannot and will not accept,” said Dodik.
“110 is better than 0, but, well, it’s not the same as 113, but it’s not terrible either. So I think that we are going around in circles here for nothing,” said SNSD vice-president Željka Cvijanović.
After economics comes politics. Priorities, but also those without an agreement. The SNSD is returning familiar laws to the table again. In the Election Law, the CEC of BiH is now the key problem. The high representative prohibited the change of the current convocation through technical changes, and that in the part that can no longer be changed. Dodik resents it. And, along with the dismissal of the CEC, he is seeking the adoption of the law on the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Exclusively with the provision of the termination of the mandate of foreign judges. All this is a red line for Troika that they will not cross.
“It is not possible to expel foreign judges by law, it can only be done by amending the Constitution. I expect that this can happen in the accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the European Union”, said the president of Our Party, Edin Forto.
“There is no such price that we are ready to pay to cross the red line in any threat to the interests of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only a compromise, and that implies that everyone makes some concessions,” said Nikšić.
And, there is no concession because the SNSD came to the meeting, among other things, with a new ultimatum. The UN resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica is still vigorously opposed. There will be no lack of reaction to the adoption.
“In the name of BiH, Lagumdžija came and submitted a resolution, and that is not BiH. We demand responsibility for such a thing, it is an issue that will have to be discussed if we want to maintain any possibility for any agreements in BiH”, said Dodik.
“We automatically cut it off. There are no talks or negotiations about it, and I am not interested in what he thinks about it,” said NiP president Elmedin Konaković.
At the state level, the coalition has a long way to go to achieve results. In the Federation, between the Troika and HDZ, nevertheless, an agreement. But the question is in whose favor.
“I think that we have easily brought most of the things in the Federation to an end, up to the point that we will have a judge of the Constitutional Court. “Hopefully in a few days,” Covic said.
The failed attempt to reach an agreement shows that the coalition is facing a wall, the opposition says. All agreements, they say, end here.
“It will not go the way that the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina would like, which is to move towards Euro-Atlantic integration,” said SBiH’s Džemal Smajić, a delegate in the House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“I think that this is something that was wrongly planted from the beginning and that can no longer produce any results in this country,” said SDA’s Safet Softić, a delegate in the House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Citizens are waiting for the results. Another fiasco behind the coalition. In the background, the political crisis in doubt. The European road to Bosnia and Herzegovina is stopped, within the country everything is on hold, including the budget. A step forward from the place is not in sight. However, in a series of opportunities, a new one will follow the continuation of the unfinished meeting in ten days at the latest, Federalna writes.
