Bosnia's State Investigative and Protection Agency, SIPA, said that it was not authorized to maintain peace and security in the streets, as this was the job of the entity and cantonal police structures.
Responding to claims that it did not react to the violent unrest on February 7, SIPA said the Presidency and other institutions were supposed to be guarded by the relevant police agencies.
After a nine-hour meeting on the vexed Sejdic-Finci ruling ended without result, the EU Enlargement Commissioner blamed the impasse on Bosnian party leaders.
The EU Enlargement Commissioner, Stefan Fule, blamed leaders of Bosnia's seven main parties for the failure of yet another meeting on how to implement a 2009 Strasbourg court ruling.
The European Court of Human Rights has obliged Bosnia to change its constitution to enable ethnic minorities to run for top governing posts currently reserved to candidates of the three largest ethnic groups, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats.
After Bosniak MPs submitted a proposal to parliament enabling early general elections, the Bosnian Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, has indicated that he may now accept the idea.
Several Bosnian Croatian parties have decided to run together in the October general elections so as to best protect the community's interests.
The Croatian People's Assembly - a Bosnian Croat umbrella group - has said that most Croatian parties will go into the general elections in October together, in order to protect the best interests of the community.
Bozo Ljubic, head of the Croatian People's Assembly, also said on Monday that the member parties would not form any "illegitimate" coalitions following the elections.
Sulejman Tihic and Nermina Kapetanovic of the Party of Democratic Action and Hasan Becirovic of the Social Democratic Party, all delegates to the Bosniak caucus in the state-level Bosnian parliament, did not attend the session on Friday, saying they were sick.
Their absence meant that a quorum could not be raised and the session was cancelled.
Bosnian MPs adopted changes to the law on January 23, enabling the Central Electoral Commission to call nationwide October elections.
The Electoral Commission has said it is aiming for elections to take place on October 12. It plans to call the elections in May.
“There are no more legal obstacles to call the 2014 general elections,” spokesperson Maksida Piric said, noting: “We have to call the elections 150 days before polling day.”
Stanko Primorac, a lawmaker from the Croatian Party of Rights, HSP, on January 16 asked parliamentarians to vote to dismiss Zivko Budimir, President of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Primorac submitted the request for the House of Representatives to discuss the dismissal at their next session dedicated to choosing a speaker after Fehim Skaljic recently resigned.
Primorac said he based the demand on Budimir's "violation of the constitution and of the law and bringing the Federation into financial and political collapse”.
The ongoing crisis in Bosnia's Federation entity prompted the sacking of the finance minister shows no sign of resolution
Budimir sacked Krajina on Friday over a complaint by several Croat war veterans’ organisations which said that their members had not received their pensions, but the president was quickly accused of forcing him out for political reasons.
After the dismissal of Krajina, a Croat, there are now not enough Croats in the Federation entity government for it to function properly.
Budimir has also demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Nermin Niksic so that the whole entity government can be replaced.
The opposition MPs staged a symbolic protest on Sunday by gathering all the assembly's microphones and handing them over to the speaker, Igor Radojicic, before they boycotted the day's session, media reported from Banja Luka.
They claimed that emergency procedures had been improperly used on Saturday to adopt the entity’s budget for 2014 urgently, in time to meet a Monday deadline imposed by the International Monetary Fund.
Lawmakers from the opposition Serb Democratic Party, the Party of Democratic Progress and the People's Democratic Movement took part in the boycott.
The government of Bosnia's Federation entity has presented the entity's draft budget for 2014, saying it is nearly double this year's budget in size, as it has to include paying off old loans.
The entity has to repay around half a billion euro in these loans. The authorities hope a new tranche from an IMF stand-by will bridge the chasm.
But to get another IMF financial injection, the entity government first has to adopt a budget for next year on time.
Bosnians are still awaiting the full results of the country's first census since the war, and while many think that discovering the truth about contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina will be a positive step, others like Bishop Franjo Komarica believe that it will reveal that the impact of the ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 conflict was even worse than previously thought.
An amendment to the conflict of interest law in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) transfers authority in the cases to a parliament commission, a change that analysts and NGOs say could open the political sector up to corruption.
Currently, the Central Elections Commission is the authority in determining officials' involvement in conflict of interest.
The amendments have been passed by the state government, but need to be overturned by parliament, analysts said.
Bosnian police arrested Federation President Zivko Budimir and 18 others on suspicion of corruption on Friday after a series of top-level raids, the state prosecutor said.
Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik told the Hague trial of his predecessor Radovan Karadzic that there was no criminal plot to expel Muslims and create a mono-ethnic state.
Bosnian presidency member Zeljko Komsic’s party is promising youthful faces and a fresh democratic alternative, but some analysts suggest that ethnic interests dictate that it will struggle for support.
The Federation entity's ruling Social Democrats have urged the High Representative to impose a solution to the prolonged crisis afflicting the entity's government.
The new Prime Minister of Republika Srpska, Zeljka Cvijanovic, has named six new ministers as part of her rejigged team, while promising a tougher fight against corruption.
The mainly Bosniak Party of Democratic Action has turned down a ministerial position in the new government of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity.
OPEMAM es miembro de EODS (European Observation and Democratic Support |Madrid | Contáctanos
