Čović: Our credibility has fallen, we have embarrassed ourselves before the international community

Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Croat people, Dragan Čović, held a press conference regarding the events on the political scene of BiH, stating that the last five or six days have been dynamic, reports Patria News Agency.

- My last visit to Sarajevo was on Friday when I discussed several important topics with Ivanić and Izetbegović. I never use any word that would compromise what we are doing together, because we have no other choice but to work together - he said.

He added that agreements are impossible to implement jointly if there is no trust.

- For all of this to function, we need the government that we established a year and four months ago. That does not exist if you do not have trust between partners or the coalition. If you take the statements of all of us from 4-5 months ago, you will see that none of the colleagues had anything bad to say about the Euro-Atlantic path.

He said that good work had been done, but it should not have been compromised.

- We did good work, but we should not have compromised it as we have in the last five or six months. We should not have gone to Warsaw without agreeing on a joint document. We were ready, but we were not clearly determined to finish the job properly.

- I must be grateful to my two colleagues in the Presidency because there is not a single agenda item that has not been agreed upon and each has been unanimously adopted. This is not how things are done at the state level; you see that half of the items are rejected because they are not prepared properly.

Regarding the "controversial" meeting in Konjic that was supposed to be held with SDA, which he did not attend, Čović said:

- We did not agree on a date; there was an option for Tuesday or Wednesday, so I was taken aback by the news about the date in Konjic. Izetbegović and I have not spoken since Friday when we parted ways, neither directly nor indirectly.

Čović also commented on the meeting between Milorad Dodik and Izetbegović in Istočno Sarajevo, which was held on Sunday.

- The objection regarding Sunday is the way the meeting was organized. The problem is not that they sat down, the problem is that a document emerged from that meeting which was official. I support mutual meetings among all of us. We had a problem for a long time on how to agree on the text. The problem is that someone spoke on behalf of Croats. Someone tried to play with the opinion of one side, and you cannot do that because these are sensitive matters. The wrong direction has been taken when it comes to the functioning of the coordination mechanism - said Čović.

Čović also said that a parliamentary majority practically does not exist.

He also added that on Sunday, "many masks fell".

- A few days before that, some lines were drawn and messages were sent, and then it was revealed that many are using tactics in their political leadership. Let this be a blush on our faces, because we have embarrassed ourselves before the international community - said Čović.

- We have gone backwards with the strategy of doing something "in a hurry," not forwards at all. Overvoting is a model, and that is not a problem at all. Overvoting the majority is a practice in the democratic world. That is okay, but in the end, these positions must be balanced - added Čović, stating that time had run out.

- Time has run out for all of us, for politics here in general. Half of our mandate has passed, what can we say we have done? We can boast about micro and macro indicators that we have initiated something, but we see how people live around us - said Dragan Čović.

- We are who we are. We have not created a European environment, but it was a brilliant chance to seize opportunities. Our credibility has fallen, but I still believe that we will have candidate status next year. I am sure that if the corrected Coordination Mechanism is adopted at the next Council of Ministers session, we will have fulfilled all conditions.