Who Inserted Dayton into NATO’s Declaration and Saved Croats in BiH

You have probably noticed the latest exchange of fire related to the NATO summit declaration between President Milanović and Minister Grlić Radman. They even pulled out old party cards against each other, both personal and family. Perhaps you wondered if NATO is attacking us or if we are attacking NATO. Did Zoki really jump on NATO by himself and in half a minute save the constitutionality of Croats in BiH as well as the Dayton Agreement from its signatories, even from its creators?

Documents of international organizations or alliances are not prepared like this:

– Hello, Zoki, are you coming?

– Hello, Jens! Are you messing with me? What kind of final paper is that? It looks like a cat wrote it. Or some NGO from Sarajevo?

– What’s wrong?

– What do you mean? The entire Dayton Agreement and the entire change of the electoral law are missing. Either you include that or I’m not coming. And I’m not signing. Do you hear me? No chance!

– Okay, Zoran, don’t get angry. Consider it resolved…

And so Zoki, in half a minute with one conversation with Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO Secretary General, resolves what the entire Croatian diplomacy led by Minister Grlić Radman and Prime Minister Plenković could not resolve for months. And Zoki saves the Croats in BiH and their constitutionality.

Electoral Law in the Dayton Framework

Things are somewhat more complex. The final declaration of the NATO summit is not a salvational document and BiH is not its priority topic. However, since a stronger international engagement in BiH is expected, primarily targeting the amendment of the electoral law, it is important that BiH is included in it.

And it is particularly important that the declaration refers to the Dayton Agreement, which is, in fact, also the Constitution of BiH, but also the guardian of the constitutionality of the peoples, which is very important for Croats and their survival in BiH. Secondly, it is important for the dynamics of the process that the declaration mentions the need to amend the electoral law. But without the Dayton framework in which the constitutionality of the peoples is embedded, that change in the electoral law combined with constitutional changes could produce even worse effects for Croats in BiH than the current situation in the Federation, where they are outvoted by Bosniaks and have their representatives chosen for them, not only in the Presidency but also at other levels of government.

Therefore, it is in the interest of Croats, and also in the Croatian national interest, that the electoral law is changed as soon as possible. The process will likely begin with the arrival of the new high international representative Christian Schmidt in BiH at the end of August. It is important that the new electoral law is adopted before the next parliamentary elections in BiH, which are to be held next fall. Furthermore, it is important that this new law ensures that Croats can choose their representatives themselves and abolish the existing practice of Bosniak outvoting. The framework for such a solution is contained in the Dayton Agreement and the constitutionality of the peoples.

The goals and practices of Bosniak politics are completely opposite: they do not want a change in the electoral law, they want to maintain the practice of outvoting Croats and the possibility of choosing Croatian representatives; if the electoral law is changed, they want to further abolish the form and content of the constitutive peoples and the concept of federalism by promoting the principle of a civic state, which is, in fact, a formula for their political dominance. For Serbs in BiH, the status quo regarding these issues is acceptable.

Lobbying Against Erdoğan’s Interests

As a member of NATO (and the EU), Croatia is in a different position today when discussing international engagement around BiH than during the war in the nineties. However, Bosniaks have a strong advocate in NATO in Turkey and R. T. Erdoğan.

And many Western countries, including those most engaged in BiH – Germany and the USA – are not particularly close to the concept of constitutive peoples, the concept of a civic state is not repugnant to them, and they are not particularly bothered by the practice of outvoting Croats. They would gladly concede to Erdoğan on that. Rather than on the issue of immigrants. Therefore, it was not easy to ‘insert’ the Dayton Agreement and the new electoral law into the final document of the NATO summit.

But Croatia currently has a well-distributed team for such operations that worked together during the war on dozens of similar documents at the UN in New York: Marija Nobila as ambassador to NATO, Neven Pelicarić at Pantovčak, and Vladimir Drobnjak in the Banski Dvori. And both Milanović and Plenković are finally making political moves towards BiH. This is key to changing the declaration.

And Zoki’s battle against NATO and false allies? That is part of the same show. And it cannot be said that this role is difficult for him. The only question is this: does he enjoy defeating NATO in half a minute more – or defeating Plenković and Grlić Radman for weeks and months.

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