Čović and Puljić: Position of Croats-Catholics in BiH Extremely Poor

Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Dragan Čović spoke today in Sarajevo with the Archbishop of the Vrhbosna Archdiocese, Cardinal Vinko Puljić, about the position of Croats-Catholics in BiH, both on a pastoral-religious and political level.

With special emphasis, the discussion focused on the position of Croats-Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, both on a pastoral-religious and political level. As announced by the Presidency, Čović informed the Cardinal about political activities aimed at improving the position of Croats in BiH, while Cardinal Puljić spoke about information regarding the state of Catholics in BiH, which the Church has at its disposal.

The participants agreed that, overall, the position of Croats-Catholics is extremely poor in the institutional-political and social sense. The insufficient level of constitutional, legal and political security deepens inequality in all other fields, especially regarding inclusion and access to vital social processes.

All this points to the growing need to strengthen unity among Croats-Catholics, as well as cooperation among all religious, social, political and intellectual components. In this regard, the positive role of the Croatian National Assembly was particularly emphasized, as an institution that is gaining increasing importance in the overall socio-political life of BiH and represents a comprehensive and credible expression of the needs and interests of the Croatian people in BiH. In this context, the process of political profiling of the Croatian National Assembly is especially encouraging, as an institution that articulates and protects the national interests of the Croatian people in BiH, who, based on the constitutional provision on constituent status, hold an inalienable right to their own subjectivity, sovereignty, participation and equal decision-making.

It was noted that the state of BiH, nearly twenty-two years after the war, is still not able to equally protect all its constituent peoples. Therefore, it is quite clear that changes are necessary in BiH that promote a fair structure, institutional architecture and relations based on the equality of citizens and the equality of constituent peoples. A people that does not have adequate protective mechanisms at its disposal, nor the opportunity to nurture its own social, political, cultural and even religious particularities, is left at the mercy of ill-intentioned individuals who, in their actions, are guided by the laws of political force and power, which by their nature are extremely unjust and contrary to general moral and human values.

A state founded on injustice, whose laws and institutions stifle and sanction the creative and extremely well-intentioned capacities of one of its constituent peoples, tendentiously excluding them from decision-making processes and pushing them to the margins of events, is at odds with the European aspirations and democratic standards upheld by the EU. Therefore, institutional and legal corrections are urgently needed that will once and for all exclude the possibility of someone else deciding on behalf of the Croats. This means that manipulations in the process of electing political representatives of the Croats must be legally prevented, as well as in the process of forming governments at all levels.