HDZ on Čović-Izetbegović-Plenković meeting: Solution to the Croatian issue will be accelerated!

A meeting was held in Zagreb between the President of HDZ BiH and Deputy Speaker of the House of Peoples of the BiH PA Dragan Čović, President of SDA and Deputy Speaker of the House of Peoples of the BiH PA Bakir Izetbegović, and Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia Andrej Plenković.

As announced, a unified stance was reiterated that these are neighboring countries that must hold regular meetings at the highest levels with open communication with the political representatives of all three constituent peoples, in order to further expand cooperation, but also to avoid any ambiguous messages that are often maliciously perceived and imputed in public.

"Such meetings at the highest levels must serve as an excellent example of mutual internal respect in Bosnia and Herzegovina and joint state-level discussions with neighboring countries such as the Republic of Croatia. At the same time, such an approach is a practical confirmation that the Republic of Croatia respects the constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina based on the constitutional provision of equality of the three constituent peoples. Furthermore, the stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina, conditioned by full respect for the constitutional order and the equality of the three constituent peoples, is a key prerequisite for its
prosperous European future, in line with the recommendations of the European Commission and the EU Parliament. This

further points to the necessity of implementing the relevant decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH and the European Court of Human Rights in order to ensure key reforms regarding the protection of the principles of democratic representation and the constitutionality of all three peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the human rights of all its citizens. It was assessed that the implementation of the agreement on holding local elections in the City of Mostar, which the EU institutions have set as a key priority, represents an encouraging step forward and a clear indication of how important compromise is for the development of democracy in a society based on the principles of the rule of law and human rights. The two signed agreements between the legitimate political representatives of Croats and Bosniaks summarize the overall relations at the level of the Federation of BiH, and as such, they represent an opportunity and a motive for further normalization and qualitative improvement of Bosniak-Croat relations through the implementation of the agreement on amendments to the Election Law, which would protect the constitutionality and full equality of all three peoples," stated HDZ.

HDZ emphasizes that the meeting highlighted the political and public discourse from the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) regarding the unitary and civic organization of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is contrary to the BiH Constitution as the key Annex 4, as well as increasingly prominent messages that the "Komšić case" will continue to be institutionally practiced and extended to other levels of government as a kind of threat to Croats as a constituent people. Furthermore, the meeting stressed that it is absolutely unacceptable to call Croats a "minority" and to avoid political agreement with SDA on the election of legitimate representatives as stipulated by the BiH Constitution, which must be regulated through the currently unconstitutional Election Law of BiH.

"The narrative that current Bosniak politics is guided by has already been seen through the failed project in the communist SFRY and the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina through the actions of the then political leadership of Serbs and Belgrade. In such circumstances, the legitimate representatives of the Croatian people gathered in the Croatian National Assembly (HNS) are left with few options, as the interlocutors for these issues persistently refuse talks that should resolve the key obstacles to the functioning of the state, its institutions, and any progress in the context of EU integration.

Avoiding cooperation with legitimate representatives of Serbs, regardless of who they are, is counterproductive to overall relations and the creation of polarization that undermines the constitutional order," they further state.