CVIJANOVIĆ: PROPOSED BUDGET UNCONSTITUTIONAL, CATERS TO THE WILL OF AN UNELECTED FOREIGNER

BANJA LUKA, 18 AUGUST /SRNA/ – The Serb member of the BiH Presidency Željka Cvijanović stated that the budget of the joint institutions of BiH, proposed by Presidency members Željko Komšić and Denis Bećirović, was unconstitutional and catered to the will of an unelected foreigner.

Cvijanović said that the proposal for the budget of the joint institutions of BiH will be on the agenda of tomorrow's Presidency session, emphasizing that the proposal is the result of certain unconstitutional interventions. "As a chairperson, during the time I held that position, I twice proposed the budget of BiH institutions, basing it on what had been agreed or formulated within the Council of Ministers and proposed by the Ministry of Finance /within the Council of Ministers/, and I agreed with that budget because it was realistic and appropriate," Cvijanović emphasized. She explained that she had made sure the budget was adopted at a decent time during the calendar year, rather than dragging it out as had been done in the past, often until the very end of the year. Cvijanović pointed out that, in the meantime, interventions were made by Christian Schmidt, who is not the High Representative and has no right to interfere in the budgetary sphere, just as he has no right to interfere in electoral legislation. "He has no right to interfere, yet he did so, even in the BiH Criminal Code. He did all of this outside the Dayton Agreement, outside the Constitution, outside the powers contained in Annex 10 of the Dayton Agreement, and brought us into a completely absurd situation," Cvijanović said. She added that Schmidt intervened in the budgetary sphere by deciding how certain payments should be carried out in relation to arbitration settlements and by making plans for the procurement of certain equipment outside of what BiH institutions had stipulated. "Then this version of the budget appears, where someone is again trying to push the whole report forward in an unconstitutional way," Cvijanović noted. She underlined that the budget cannot foresee categories that are unconstitutional, that is, for those to be allocated or imposed as a budgetary burden at a level where they do not belong. "This has been done here through certain interventions, through certain amendments. Moreover, I saw amendments that foresee, for example, if a budget user requested one amount, they would give them double that, even though they had not asked for it, while at the same time ignoring the requests of workers who are fighting for their rights. Everything that we could have already done for those workers and intervened with would have been possible if it weren’t for the false explanations and excuses they kept using all this time, claiming that Srpska wants to damage the BiH budget, even though it is clear to everyone how any expense arising from arbitration related to one of the entities or subjects can be settled," Cvijanović said. She described all this as absurdities, stressing that BiH is heading in the completely wrong direction. "It is moving like a fast train in an unconstitutional direction, and now we are supposed to accept such detours. My stance on this proposal is clear: it is unconstitutional, it contains unconstitutional elements. It caters to the will of an unelected foreigner who has no right to meddle and stick his nose into any area where he has no mandate, neither in the financial sphere nor in the previous ones. Therefore, I will respond accordingly," Cvijanović declared. She reminded that she had twice placed the budget on the agenda, and that it was decent, measured, rational, realistic, and constitutional. "This one is unconstitutional, contains unconstitutional elements, and arose as a result of manipulation, first waiting for some Christian Schmidt, and then my colleagues saying the conditions had been met to adopt the budget. Go ahead, feel free. This is a path into a dangerous sphere, where many in Sarajevo have bowed their heads and are just waiting for someone else to do the work for them. And I responsibly claim that the work Schmidt is doing for BiH is dangerous and bad work," Cvijanović pointed out. She added that we are already living with the consequences of Schmidt's dangerous, bad, and destructive work in BiH.