Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of B&H prof. dr. Zlatko Lagumdžija spoke at the international conference "Legacy of Peace - 25 Years of the Dayton - Paris Peace Agreement", organized by the Croatian Academy of Science and Art and the Croatian Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.
Lagumdžija pointed out that a real dialogue was held at the conference, and that two concepts could be heard - one that insists on resolving the "Croatian issue" and advocates constitutionality and ethnic representation, and the other that he advocated, which advocates B&H as a civic, secular and liberal democratic state.
- There is no reason for B&H not to be organized as a civil and liberal-democratic state like the EU countries, unless behind this whole story of constitutivity there is a motive for not accepting that you should have one country in the EU where Muslims are the majority and then you are trying to package it into a constitutivity that is essentially the last recurrence of the Communist-Bolshevik constitutivity that is almost 100 years old. In the end, Yugoslavia ended in blood, and the Soviet Union went into dissolution, thanks, among other things, to that concept of constitutivity - said Lagumdžija.
Lagumdžija points out that even the highest Western experts have a problem in understanding the concept of constitutivity, which is completely foreign to their countries.
- The strongest argument was given by Ambassador Hill, who was Richard Holbrooke's deputy, who drew attention to the fact that in Dayton, Americans who are top experts in constitutional law could not understand the concept of what we are talking about when we talk about constitutivity - said the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of B&H.
As he claims, the examples of Sarajevo and Vareš show the meaninglessness of the arguments about "legitimate representation".
- You have the situation that in the capital of B&H today is the Prime Minister of the Canton Mario Nenadić, the Mayor of Centar Srđan Mandić, and the future mayor will be Bogić Bogićević. You also have the example of Vareš, where Zdravko Marošević, otherwise a member of the HDZ, won with the majority of Bosniak votes.-
Lagumdžija also pointed out that the latest messages from the newly elected American president and European officials are very encouraging:
- Joe Biden talks about a different B&H from this one, which is based on national atavisms, and that was confirmed by his address on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Dayton. There is a clear strategy for which B&H that America will stand for. But the presentation of Josep Borrell, as well as, for example, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, is also encouraging. The two spoke exclusively about human rights and justice in B&H, Lagumdžija said.
