Constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the reform being negotiated over that country's complicated and expensive government structure established by the Dayton Peace Accords. The signing of the accord ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but critics argue that its organization of the country was not meant to be permanent.

Dayton established a rotating presidency of three presidents elected by the country's Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. While this has led to a sort of power-sharing among ethnic groups it has made government less stable, with a new president every eight months.

Dayton also established the position of High Representative. This UN position was given wide-ranging powers including the ability to sack members high ranking members of government.

The treaty also solidified the existence of two separate war-time entities in the country: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so called Muslim-Croat Federation, and the Republika Srpska (later the internationally administered Brčko District was created).

New talks involving eight political parties representing the two entities began in April 2005 with the assistance of the United States Institute of Peace, and two non-governmental organizations, the Dayton Peace Accords Project and the Public International Law and Policy Group. The NGO-lead negotiations continued up to the tenth anniversary of the Accords on 21 November 2005 when the United States took over the process.^[1][2] The United Statesexpected a preliminary deal to be reached at this conference, but talks soon fell apart. Members of the presidency did agree to increase the powers of the prime minister and add two ministries to the central government, but this fell far short of expectations. A second round of talks held on January 17 also failed to produce any results.

A sticking point has been the creation of a unified presidency. This would favour the largest single ethnic group (the Bosniaks), but some guarantees have been made for the other groups to hold vice-presidency.

Also, the country's great decentralization dating from the war has created a large bureaucracy. Any reform would have to strengthen the powers of the federal government. This would strip powers from both the Federation and the Republika Srpska. However, this has met opposition from the government of the Republika Srpska, which notes that of the country's thirteen governments, eleven are in the Federation (ten cantonal governments and the Federation government). The other two are the Republika Srpska and state(BiH)-level government.

These reforms are key to Bosnia and Herzegovina fulfilling their obligations to the European Union's Stabilisation and Association Agreement.

The six ruling coalition parties announced on 2007-12-14 that talks would resume in January in Brussels, and that the two main Croat parties (Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatian Democratic Union 1990) had submitted proposals for a new federal structure to the other party leaders.^[3]

The main parties agreed to reinvigorate constitutional reform efforts after the successful signing of the SAA.^[4] New talks were set to begin following the municipal elections in October 2008, as Lajcak stated that preparation for EU accession was impossible under the current constitutional order.^[5]

A plan to divide Bosnia into four entities instead of the two in existence was proposed on 27 January 2009, with further talks scheduled for 23 February 2009.^[6]

See also

• Dayton Peace Accords

References

1. ^ R. Bruce Hitchner, "From Dayton to Brussels: The Story Behind the Constitutional and Governmental Reform Process in Bosnia and Herzegovina." The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Winter 2006 Vol. 30.1, 125-136
2. ^ Don Hays and Jason Crosby, "From Dayton to Brussels," USIP, Special Report, October, 2006.
3. ^ BiH leaders to resume constitutional reform talks next month in Brussels (SETimes.com)
4. ^ BiH ruling parties to continue constitutional reform talks after signing of SAA (SETimes.com)
5. ^ Lajcak, Dodik agree constitutional reform talks will begin after BiH's local elections (SETimes.com)
6. ^ http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2009/01/27/feature-01