SARAJEVO

Schmidt to address the deputies of B&H PA House of Representatives tomorrow

This was agreed by the Collegium of the House of Representatives, and the information was confirmed to the press by the Speaker of the House Denis Zvizdić

Christian Schmidt. Archive

H. J. I. / Fena

High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schmidt will address deputies of the House of Representatives of the B&H Parliamentary Assembly on Thursday, October 28.

This was agreed by the Collegium of the House of Representatives, and the information was confirmed to the press by the Speaker of the House Denis Zvizdić, expressing hope that Schmidt will present a strategy for further action in Bosnia and Herzegovina at that session.

Schmidt had previously asked permission to address the session to talk about the current political situation.

However, the work of B&H institutions is still blocked in B&H as Republic of Srpska political representatives elected to state institutions refuse to participate in the work of institutions after former High Representative Valentin Inzko imposed amendments to the Criminal Code banning the denial of genocide and glorification of war criminals.

The National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska also adopted conclusions regarding the rejection of work in B&H institutions until "the issue of the imposed Inzko law is resolved", and political representatives of the position and opposition in the House of Representatives refer to these conclusions.

They did not attend yesterday's session of the House either. Deputies of SNSD and the Serb Caucus attended only the part of the session at which the initiative for the dismissal of B&H Minister of Defense Sifet Podžić was discussed, while the SDS-PDP-DNS caucus did not participate in the session of the House of Representatives.

They also announced that they would not attend tomorrow's session either, while some of them said that this would mean that Schmidt would actually address the representatives of the FB&H Parliament.

Chair of the SNSD MPs' caucus in the House of Representatives, Snježana Novaković Bursać, stated on Twitter that the Extended Collegium of the House made the decision approving Schmidt's address "beyond its competence".