The speaker of the House of Peoples of the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dragan Covic, thanked the Croatian Parliament on Tuesday for the resolution on the status of Bosnian Croats, which was adopted by the Croatian Parliament last week. He assessed that the document 'has the spirit of Dayton' because the equality of the Croatian people is a constitutional category.
The resolution was passed by the Croatian parliamentary majority on the initiative of the Homeland Movement. In nine points, it calls on the government to continue supporting the full political equality of Bosnian Croats, in particular the reform of the electoral system, which would guarantee the election of legitimate representatives to each of the constituent peoples.
The members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina are elected in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Bosnian voters are three and a half times more numerous than Croatian voters. The votes of mostly Bosnian voters elected the Croatian member of the Presidency four times, on 4 October the candidate was not allowed to run in the general elections.
The HDZ has nominated Darjan Filipovic for the member of the Presidency, and the candidate has the opposition five, while the Democratic Front of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina represents the Slaven Kovacevic. 'I am convinced that we will have the opportunity to have our own legitimate representatives, and that is the basis of the long-term stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina,' said Covic.
Bosnian politicians are not satisfied with the resolution. The president of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denis Bejrovic, assessed that his election represents a change in the internal affairs of the country, contrary to international law, while the foreign minister Elmedin Konakovic stated that the Bosnians in Bosnia and Herzegovina have 'more rights than they are entitled to by law' and announced a conference on the subject in Sarajevo on 5 August.
The host of the meeting, the speaker of the Croatian Parliament, Gordan Jandrokovic, highlighted that Bosnia and Herzegovina is the third country in the amount of Croatian investments, and the trade of the two countries last year exceeded four billion euros. As a key joint project, he highlighted the Southern Gas Interconnector, which would connect Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Croatian gas system and the LNG terminal on the island of Krk; Croatia, he said, has secured funding for 74 kilometers of pipeline to the border.
