ZAGREB, October 19, 2018 – Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Thursday that he was satisfied with the way his position on Bosnia and Herzegovina and the status of the Croat people was accepted at the EU summit in Brussels.
During a debate within the framework of external relations at the summit of the 28 EU leaders, Plenković spoke about Bosnia and Herzegovina following the general election in that country where the majority Bosniak population once again outvoted the smaller Croat population and elected the Croat member to the tripartite presidency.
“I think that after my exposition, most colleagues only then realised the dimension of the problem. We have to understand that for someone who is a little further away from our region, that is hard to comprehend. Intervening was supported by Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Hungary’s Viktor Orban and interestingly Spain’s premier Pedro Sanchez, and French President Emmanuel Macron, and EU High Representatives for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini acknowledged our arguments,” Plenković told reporters.
Plenković said that he had expressed concern because Bosniaks, as the majority people in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, elected the Croat member to the country’s presidency, in contradiction to the majority will of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina who voted for the incumbent Croat member of the presidency.
“We explained that this circumvents the Dayton Agreement. That scenario is not good for the Bosnia and Herzegovina’s functioning. It is not good for all three constituent peoples, in this case the Croat people in relation to the others with regard to equality and legitimate representation in institutions,” Plenković said.
After the summit, Plenković is set to conduct bilateral meetings with Mogherini and President of the European Council, Donald Tusk.
“We will talk more, Bosnia and Herzegovina isn’t the only topic. I am interested in how the High Representative views a series of topics in our neighbourhood – what will happen following the referendum in Macedonia which didn’t see a sufficient number of voters going to the poll, how the dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo is going and with President Tusk about several topics that aren’t related just to that,” Plenković said.
