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STORY: UN / BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
TRT: 04:44
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 06 MAY 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters
06 MAY 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. Wide shot, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schmidt addressing Council
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Christian Schmidt, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina:
“At this moment, in which B & H is invited to join negotiations over future European Union membership, the need to amend the Constitution, not only in this context, is both evident and important.”
5. Med shot, Schmidt addressing Council
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Christian Schmidt, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina:
“In Bosnia Herzegovina, the right of decision is in the hands of all, not unilaterally against the internationally agreed constitution and agreed laws, but by developing and amending them together. The European Union's requirements regarding the necessary adoption of internationally accepted state of law for the stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities, as stated in the Copenhagen Criteria, describe the path that needs to be followed.”
7. Wide shot, Schmidt addressing Council
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Christian Schmidt, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina:
“The first quarter of this year was marked by a significant rise of tensions, which without question amounts to an extraordinary crisis in the country since the signing of the Dayton Agreement. I may underline that I see a political crisis. I do not yet have indications for a security crisis.”
9. Med shot, Schmidt addressing Council
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Christian Schmidt, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina:
“Bosnia and Herzegovinians are facing is facing difficult times. Nobody would have expected 30 years ago that the international community is needed as much today as it is. The peace agreement that this UN Security Council endorsed 30 years ago remains the very foundation of which the future of Bosnia Herzegovina, with its sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence can be built. Reopening or redefining the peace agreement challenges the basis for peace and prosperity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This does not mean that we should not talk about necessary amendments and adoptions of this Constitution. The way forward includes countering threats and attacks to its very foundation, but also implementing meaningful reforms, including in the context of the country's European integration.”
11. Wide shot, Schmidt addressing Council
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Christian Schmidt, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina:
“The international community cannot determine the future of the country. The impulses and the directions must come from the domestic level. I therefore call on the public leaders to the country to continue their pursuit to full European integration, implement reforms, and build a democratic society that provides prosperity for the current and future generations.”
13. Wide shot, Council
14. Wide shot, Bosnia and Herzegovina Chairperson of the Presidency Željka Cvijanović addressing Council
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Željka Cvijanović, Chairperson of the Presidency, Bosnia and Herzegovina:
“The Dayton Agreement was not the perfect solution, but it was an act of courageous diplomacy that balanced three peoples and two entities in one state. It was and remains a legally binding treaty, lodged in the annals of this Council whose annex four is our Constitution and whose annex ten is the mandate of the High Representative or defines the mandate of the High Representative. It created the decentralized consensus-based system precisely so that no single actor, domestic or foreign, could dominate the others. Yet today, that balance is being hollowed out by an unaccountable foreign intervention, and either through the actions of various high representatives of foreign judges in the constitutional court of B & H.”
16. Wide shot, Cvijanović addressing Council
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Željka Cvijanović, Chairperson of the Presidency, Bosnia and Herzegovina:
“The Dayton Agreement did not authorize the High Representative to legislate, to suspend the Constitution, to criminalize the elected officials and political parties, or rule by decree. Yet that is precisely what Mr. Christian Schmidt and some of his predecessors have done many times in 30 years. Here lies the heart of a continual crisis in Bosnia, whose combination we are witnessing today. Everything that flows from that irregularity, lack of UN Security Council confirmation, and unlawful impositions beyond the mandate set forth in annex ten, is infected with the same defect. No legal system, domestic or international, can survive if the interpreters of the rules exempt themselves from the rules.”
18. Wide shot, end of meeting
The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, today (6 May) told the Security Council that 30 years since the signing of the Dayton Agreement, and in the context of an invitation to join negotiations over future European Union membership, the need to amend Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Constitution, “is both evident and important.”
In Bosnia Herzegovina, Schmidt told the Council, “the right of decision is in the hands of all, not unilaterally against the internationally agreed constitution and agreed laws, but by developing and amending them together.”
He stressed that “the European Union's requirements regarding the necessary adoption of internationally accepted state of law for the stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities, as stated in the Copenhagen Criteria, describe the path that needs to be followed.”
Schmidt said, “the first quarter of this year was marked by a significant rise of tensions, which without question amounts to an extraordinary crisis in the country since the signing of the Dayton Agreement.”
He underlined that he sees “a political crisis,” but “do not yet have indications for a security crisis.”
The High Representative said “nobody would have expected 30 years ago that the international community is needed as much today as it is. The peace agreement that this UN Security Council endorsed 30 years ago remains the very foundation of which the future of Bosnia Herzegovina, with its sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence can be built. Reopening or redefining the peace agreement challenges the basis for peace and prosperity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This does not mean that we should not talk about necessary amendments and adoptions of this Constitution. The way forward includes countering threats and attacks to its very foundation, but also implementing meaningful reforms, including in the context of the country's European integration.”
He said the international community “cannot determine the future of the country,” and “the impulses and the directions must come from the domestic level;”
Schmidt called “on the public leaders to the country to continue their pursuit to full European integration, implement reforms, and build a democratic society that provides prosperity for the current and future generations.”
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Chairperson of the Presidency, Željka Cvijanović, told the Council that “the Dayton Agreement was not the perfect solution, but it was an act of courageous diplomacy that balanced three peoples and two entities in one state,” and “was and remains a legally binding treaty, lodged in the annals of this Council whose annex four is our Constitution and whose annex ten is the mandate of the High Representative or defines the mandate of the High Representative.”
Cvijanović said the Agreement, “created the decentralized consensus-based system precisely so that no single actor, domestic or foreign, could dominate the others. Yet today, that balance is being hollowed out by an unaccountable foreign intervention, and either through the actions of various high representatives of foreign judges in the constitutional court of B & H.”
She said, “the Dayton Agreement did not authorize the High Representative to legislate, to suspend the Constitution, to criminalize the elected officials and political parties, or rule by decree. Yet that is precisely what Mr. Christian Schmidt and some of his predecessors have done many times in 30 years. Here lies the heart of a continual crisis in Bosnia, whose combination we are witnessing today. Everything that flows from that irregularity, lack of UN Security Council confirmation, and unlawful impositions beyond the mandate set forth in annex ten, is infected with the same defect. No legal system, domestic or international, can survive if the interpreters of the rules exempt themselves from the rules.”
The Russian delegation left the Council floor during Schmidt’s briefing alleging his lack of Security Council. confirmation
Schmidt presented the Secretary-General’s sixty-seventh report on the implementation of the Peace Agreement on Bosnia and Herzegovina, covering the period from 16 October 2024 to 15 April 2025 to the Council.
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