In his intervention at today’s EU Foreign Affairs Council regarding the situation in Bosnia Herzegovina, and in light of his findings during his recent visit to Sarajevo, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos stressed that Bosnia-Herzegovina’s major issue continues to be the constitutional architecture provide for by the Dayton Agreement, given that in reality, under the constitutional pretext of a federation, there is de facto functioning of a confederal state of affairs in the country.
In this sense, Mr. Venizelos agreed with the proposal to request that the legal services of the Council and the Commission evaluate the constitutional and general legal order of Bosnia-Herzegovina from the perspective of the European community acquis. It should also be confirmed that Bosnia-Herzegovina itself has “ownership” of the revision process for the necessary constitutional amendments in the country, through the state organs provided for.
Mr. Venizelos stressed that the constitutional and more general institutional dysfunctions create a gulf between the political system and the people, and this gives rise to lack of transparency, a crisis of legitimization, and a crisis as to the ability to manage the economic and social challenges Bosnia-Herzegovina is facing as an economy and as a society, beyond the internal ethnic divisions and existing categorizations.
April 14, 2014