Dvije faze ustavnih promjena
Two phases of constitutional reforms

Summary/Abstract: The critics of constitutional reforms, that come mainly from the Croat and Bosniac population, and their political parties and politicians, are dissatisfied and often frustrated with the proposed solutions mostly because the US mediators have not endorsed changes concerned with the existing entities. Both parties would like to dismantle the two entities, but their views as to the level of government falling between the municipal and state levels differ hugely. The US has achieved a compromise solution, which ensured the participation in negotiations and is supposed to ensure adoption of the proposed reforms through a parliamentary procedure, by partially meeting the demands of politicians representing the two more numerous peoples. A concession to the Bosniac politics was made by strengthening the competences of governmental institutions at the state level, specifically by a transfer of authority from the entity to the state level and by strengthening the role of the Council of Ministers. For the Serb politics and politicians, the most important thing was to preserve Republika Srpska, and also to preserve an entity-based decision-making structure in the BiH Parliament. The least account was taken of the demands of the Croat political parties and politicians, and their exclusion at the final negotiating stage represents a precedent that should not have happened. Still, two concessions made to them are worthy of mentioning. First, the agreed provision that constitutional reforms concerned with the lower level of government will take place in the aftermath of the October elections; secondly, the nomination/approval of the Presidency members through the Parliament, and not their election by a direct electoral vote, as initially proposed. What will happen at the next stage, and should constitutional reforms move towards establishment of another entity, or towards dismantling of both existing ones and their replacement with a new compromise on the middle level of government between the state and the entity level, remains to be seen in the upcoming period. This will largely depend on a result of proposals and suggestions made by both Croat and Bosniac Diaspora in the US and passed to the US Administration, the UN and the European Union. And, secondarily, it depends on the actions and influences of domestic politics, political parties and intellectual elites of the three constituent peoples. Without a modification of the entity structure of the state, through establishment of three republics for three peoples or through dismantling of both Republika Srpska and the BiH Federation, the national question in the BiH cannot be solved. Without such a modification, the BiH will remain "a divided society and an unstable state".

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