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Bosnia leaders slowly moving toward deal on constitutional changes
14/11/2005

(Brussels, DTT-NET.COM) – Leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina three ethnicities (Muslims, Serbs and Croats) have made a step forward to an agreement on changing the constitution, as they ended the three day meeting held in Belgium with optimism to strengthen central institutions and overcome ethnic divisions originating from 1995 Dayton Accords.

Although there is no deal yet on the whole package proposals drafted by the American master-minders of the Dayton Agreement –American Institute for Peace (AIP) - which ended the 1991-1995 bloodshed war during which died some 250’000 people, representatives of eight political parties of all three communities left the Brussels talks with optimism that a final deal is possible in coming weeks or months, or at least till next spring (six months before the October parliamentary elections in the country) respectively.

Government
Participants of the weekend talks told DTT-NET.COM on Monday that Bosnian politicians have agreed in principle on the new composition of the government, representing the first breakthrough of the talks.

US diplomat Donald Hays, former deputy International High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), who is one of the main contributors of proposed constitution changes, said that parties have accepted to increase the number of ministers from 8 to 11.

Foreign minister of BiH Mladen Ivanic (a Serb) confirmed progress made during the talks on more ministers.

“More or less it is agreed to increase the number of ministers”, Ivanic told
DTT-NET.COM on the first achievement of the talks, which was not acceptable
earlier for Serbian side.

There are still disagreements on most of the proposals including the powers
of the government, especially on those of the Prime Minister, which
according to American professor Bruce Hitchner from AIP are the core of
constitutional changes plan.

Presidency
The AIP proposal says that the presidency should have “a single president or a president with two Vice-presidents who could rotate into the office of the president every sixteen months”. But participants disagree.
Ivanic, Hitchner and Hays said that although the three days of talks in
Brussels brought no concrete results on the presidency members, the general
mood is that all three sides could move later toward accepting the second
version of the proposal: a president with two vice-deputies.
“They proposed basically one single president although they agree as well
with two other deputies, but they don’t like to see the rotation” Ivanic
said, according to whom for the Serbian side the original proposal of AIP is
acceptable.

But Ivanic warned that Serbian side is against transferring “to many” powers
from the presidency to the government.

General mood on the final outcome

Although remaining of disagreements on most of the proposals,
representatives of all three ethnicities believe that changes on the
constitution can be achieved.

Mladen Ivanic said that a final deal on the whole package proposals “is not
realistic at this stage” but he seemed optimistic that at the end of the
negotiations which are to continue a week after in Washington and meant to
last till March, there will be one.

“I think that are improvements which are going to make the state
institutions more efficient and to make the state able to negotiate and
implement what was agreed with EU. This is something which I think is a good achievement… I think we would be very close to that situation (to achieve agreement on the package proposals)” he told reporters.

There is also optimism from Croatian side on a final agreement on the
package proposals.

Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) president Dragan Covic expressed believe that a final breakthrough is possible.

“There is hope that an agreement can be achieved in Washington” he told
reporters on Monday.

Bosnian Muslim representative joined the optimism of Serb and Croat leaders.

“We achieved the progress by the fact that for the first time, after ten
years, leaders of the parties sat on the same table talked about changes in
the Constitution. Even the few things that we accomplished during the
conference represent a step forward” Sulejman Tihic, a member of BiH
three-partite presidency from main Bosnian Muslim party SDA said.

The US ‘pressure’ and EU observatory role

European officials said that EU is not formally involved in the process of
changing the Balkan country constitution but is only a observer in the whole
process.

The plan to change Bosnia and Herzegovina constitution under US-led talks is seen by many Europeans as a pressure by Washington to impose reforms on the state institutions of the Balkan country.

But Bruce Hitchner and Donald Hays played down such claims and said that the whole project has been first initiated by the parties them selves.

They said the Bosnian leaders have asked the Dayton master minders to help
change the constitution, in order the country can cope better and with more
efficiency with its internal challenges and European integration process, as
talks on Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with EU are to start
next month.

Hitchner told DTT-NET.COM that the expenses of the three day meeting were paid by EU it self and that beside the EU Commissioner, Olli Rehn in charge of 25-nation enlargement who addressed briefly participants on the first day of the talks, other officials from EU institutions attended the Brussels conference as observers.

American members of AIP also said that EU and its member states were also consulted earlier during the preparations on the proposals changes and the whole initiative.

Claims for American pressure are also denied by BiH foreign minister. ‘This is the first time that we are in position to write the constitutional
changes in our own without having any pressure from any side”, Mladen Ivanic told DTT-NET.COM.

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