Cvitanović said the most important thing was that the officials of the Venice Commission unequivocally said that the HNS's proposal to reform the electoral legislation was fully in line with the European Court of Human Rights rulings.
„Four days spent in Neum served to see the goals of all participants in the negotiations. Izetbegović said it was agreed to reduce the competencies of the FBiH House of Peoples, which is simply not true. The greatest success of these talks is the position of Venice Commision representatives who unequivocally said that the HNS's proposal is fully in line with the European Court of Human Rights rulings. We have proposed that the members of the BiH Presidency be appointed as 'representative of the Croat constituent people and all other citizens' and 'representative of the Bosniak constituent people and all other citizens', as well as Serb. It is a simple solution that implements all European Court of Human Rights rulings. The Venice Commission representatives have clearly stated that the European Court of Human Rights will not have any problems with that,“ Cvitanović said.
Another very important thing, he added, is that literally all participants in the negotiations, even Bosniak political representatives, agreed that the rights of the Croatian people were being violated.
„Croatian position has remained constitutional and we will not allow that position to be violated, and it will be violated if it goes out of the BiH Constitution framework,“ said the HDZ 1990 president.
Sarajevo negotiators have positioned wrongly from the beginning, Cvitanović said, adding that they had tried to trade with Croatian negotiators.
„That was wrong on their part. This is not a matter of trade, but of implementing relevant rulings that concern the BiH Election Law. Everyone agreed with that, and the most important thing for me is that the Venice Commission confirmed it. The Venice Commission representative said very clearly that the Croatian proposal achieves everything requested by the European Court of Human Rights. However, the Croatian side did not win here, but rather the BiH as a state lost because it remained with the unreformed Election Law and unresolved key problems of the functioning of democracy in BiH,“ he said.
He also reminded that almost all models of rulings implementation that concern the BiH Election Law came from the Croatian side.
„Mr. Palmer has repeatedly said that everything must be done to make Croats feel BiH as their country again. At one point I believed that an agreement had been reached, when the Venice Commission said our proposal was fine and when Palmer agreed. Palmer also suggested that, in accordance with our requests, two lists be created for the election of BiH Presidency members in FBiH, Bosniak and all other citizens as list 701 and Croat and all other citizens as list 702. A day later, I do not know why, he changed his mind,“ Cvitanović said.
He says that when the agreement seemed close, there was a Bosniak evasion.
„When it came to the House of Peoples, the trade between legitimate representation and the competences of the House of Peoples began to be sought, which Croatian negotiators did not think of accepting,“ Cvitanovic said.
In the end, he expressed hope that an agreement could still be reached in the days ahead.
Dnevnik.ba