PACK: BOSNIA'S INTERNAL SETUP IS DYSFUNCTIONAL

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 7,2008) - Bosnia’s internal setup is ‘dysfunctional’ and the cantons system in the FBIH entity should be scrapped, the Chairwoman of the European Parliament Committee for South-East Europe Doris Pack said yesterday.

“If your country wants to enter into the European Union then its institutions have to be efficient,” Doris Pack said in an interview published by Bosnian daily Dnevni Avaz on Sunday.

The Bosnian Constitution – adopted as a part of the Dayton peace accord which ended the 1992-1995 Serbian,Montenegrin and Croatian aggressions against Bosnia – has created a complex internal setup. The country is weak at state level and has two highly decentralised entities – the FBIH and the genocidal Serbian creature in Bosnia the "RS" – and the separate Brcko district. The FBIH entity is further divided into ten cantons.

Pack said that both entities should be reformed but especially stressed that the FBIH entity should be “simplified.”

“Maybe the number of cantons should be reduced. Or maybe they should be abolished! Why do they have to exist?” she said, elaborating that cantonal responsibilities could be divided between entity and municipal levels.

Pack also added that establishment of a third entity is “not necessary” and “would only complicate the situation even further.”

Bosnian politicians and the political representatives of the Croatians living in Bosnia rejected Pack’s suggestion. Most of them support a thorough constitutional overhaul which would abolish both entities and establish a new regional division of the country along non-ethnic lines. This option is strongly rejected by the political representatives of the Serbians living in Bosnia.

“This is an unacceptable solution, which would only cement the two-entity division of the country,” said Miso Relota, spokesman for the HDZ BiH Party.

The Vice President of the ruling Bosnian Party of Democratic Action (SDA), Sefik Dzaferovic, said the setup should be changed not only in one but in both entities.
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