Bosnia Agreement on Forming State Government Passes Deadline

The deadline agreed between the leaders of thre three main parties in Bosnia on forming a state-level government - the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, and the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD - expired on Thursday.

On August 5, the party leaders agreed on 12 principles on a range of issues that had held up formation of the government, by which time two attempts to appoint a new prime minister had failed, leaving the country without a new state-level government for ten months following national elections held in 2018.

Disagreements over the submission of Bosnia's Annual National Programme - a precondition for activation of Bosnia's Membership Action Plan, MAP, for NATO - is the main issue thwarting the formation of a government. The main Bosniak and Croat parties support it, but the Bosnian Serbs do not.

Bakir Izetbegovic, leader of the SDA, told Dnevni Avaz, the Sarajevo-based daily, that his party saw no immediate solution but said work on finding a compromise would continue.

"Some very influential representatives in the international community are working intensively these days on new meetings," Izetbegovic said, without naming any of these representatives.

Radomir Kovacevic, from the SNSD, told regional N1 on Thursday that the SDA was to blame for the failure of the agreement, but revealed no further steps.

"We continue to stand behind the consensus that we will go into the EU and that we will cooperate with NATO. Collaboration with NATO, yes, but any new step towards NATO membership, no. The ANP is a step towards NATO membership, we will not agree to that," Kovacevic said.

Dragan Covic, leader of the HDZ, did not make any public statement about the missed...

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