Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic arrived in Mostar on Monday morning and at the beginning of his visit he was welcomed by Mostar Bishop Petar Palic and local Catholic dignitaries for the talks.

During his day-long visit, the Croatian PM, accompanied by several cabinet ministers, is expected to hold talks with the Bosnia and Herzegovina Croat leader Dragan Covic, and also tour the southern towns of Citluk, Capljina, Stolac and Ravno.

The visit of the Croatian PM is taking place against a backdrop of rising tensions over reports that the international community’s High Representative Christian Schmidt is going to impose the electoral law changes, which sparked reactions among pro-Bosnian political parties and academia, who warned that such changes would mean more discrimination and further divisions among Bosnia’s major ethnic groups.

Specifically, they warned the law changes would go in favour of the major Croat ethnic party HDZ BiH, one of the key parties in political talks on electoral reform which so far yielded no results.