Croatia is not interfering in Bosnia’s internal issues, but is, together with the EU, trying to help the country solve its matters regarding the election of the Bosnian Croat member of its tripartite Presidency, Croatian EU parliamentarian Tonino Picula said on Wednesday.

The statement refers to allegations coming from Bosnia’s top officials who said that Croatia is, through its officials within the EU, trying to interfere in Bosnia’s internal affairs by raising the issue of the 2018 General Election results in Bosnia in EU institutions.

European Parliament (EP) members from Croatia have sent a letter to top EU officials in October, expressing “deep concern” over the election of the presidency members in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The three members of Bosnia’s Presidency, who each represent one of the three ethnic majorities in the country, Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, are elected from the two semi-autonomous entities in the country. The Serb representative is elected from the Republika Srpska (RS) entity, and the Bosniak and Croat representatives from the other, Federation (FBiH) entity.

But since Bosniaks are numerically dominant in FBiH, it allows them to elect the representative for Bosnian Croats.

Croatian EP members said in the letter that this happened in October when left-leaning Zeljko Komsic was elected to the Bosnian Croat seat. They said he is not a legitimate representative of the ethnic group, that his election is detrimental to stability in the country and that it is not in the spirit of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the 1992-1995 war.

“Such policy cannot be accused of being interference in internal affairs,” Picula told the Mostar-based Dnevnik news portal.

Croatia respects Bosnia’s territorial integrity, has a positive effect on the stability in Bosnia, and is helping the country on its path toward EU membership, he said.

He said the letter represented a request for EU institutions to thoroughly analyse the post-election situation in Bosnia and take action to implement reforms in the country, most of all election law reforms.

Picula said it is good that the post-election situation in Bosnia will be on the agenda of the next Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) meeting, adding that he believes the letter from the European Parliament was one of the factors initiating the move.

He repeated that Komsic was elected thanks to the support he received from Bosniaks, and advocated for amending the Dayton Peace Agreement.

For a long time already, “it makes the establishment of a culture of constructive and long-term cooperation between the three constitutive peoples impossible,” he said.

Instead, it “stimulates a culture of continuous conflict and blockades of institutions,” he added.

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