BiH main parties announce new decentralisation agreement

27/01/2009

The leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina's three main parties announced a new agreement Monday that would split the country into four administrative units. The deal's prospects for approval appear slim, however.

(B92, Dnevni Avaz - 27/01/09; Reuters, Nezavisne Novine, Glas Srpske - 26/01/09; Fena 25/01/09)

The plan, which would be enacted as a revision to the constitution, calls for a division of the country into four administrative units, officials said. [Balkan Times]

Bosnia and Herzegovina's (BiH) three main parties reached an agreement Monday (January 26th) that calls for constitutional changes, envisioning inter alia dividing the country into four territorial and administrative units.

The leaders of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) and Croatian Democratic Union of BiH (HDZ BiH) -- Sulejman Tihic, Milorad Dodik and Dragan Covic -- issued a joint statement but offered little detail.

"We agreed that Bosnia should be a decentralised state with three layers of government of which the second one is divided into four territorial units each with their own legislative, executive and judicial powers," the statement read.

The three leaders of the parties representing BiH's Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats plan to meet again on February 23rd, when they will reportedly present a concrete plan to reorganise the country.

BiH currently contains two entities -- the Federation of BiH (FBiH), dominated by Bosniaks and ethnic Croats, and Republika Srpska (RS), where Bosnian Serbs make up the majority of the population.

Monday's deal follows a key framework agreement the three parties reached in Prud in November, when they pledged to address some critical political issues.

The three leaders' new move caught many by surprise, though, and outraged their political opponents.

Tihic and Haris Silajdzic, the leader of the second-largest Bosniak political formation, the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBIH), had a heated debate later Monday.

"This agreement is about the division of the Federation," Silajdzic said in a televised discussion Monday night. He dismissed Tihic's assurances the new units would respect "geographical, historical and economic principles" rather than "entity lines". Siladjzic added, "That means that there will be an entity with a Croatian majority ... and we will have a Sarajevo district and the Bosniaks crammed into the Tuzla, Zenica and Bihac ghettoes."

Zlatko Lagumdzija, leader of the main opposition Social Democratic Party, called the deal a "farce" and "an agreement for a new disagreement".

Dodik, who also serves as RS prime minister, told reporters in Banja Luka that the changes would not affect the territorial integrity of the Bosnian Serb entity, thus implying that the FBiH would become three new regions and contradicting Tihic's statement about the lesser importance of "entity lines".

Former RS President Dragan Cavic, though, accused Dodik of undermining Dayton Peace Accords guarantees of RS's existence and of having "tricked" the entity's citizens.

The Office of the High Representative said it had not seen Monday's declaration and, therefore, could not comment on the agreement.

The deal reportedly also focuses on the legal status of the Brcko district and the state property issue.