The position of this Dutch politician, however, met with strong opposition from representatives of the Bosnian Serb parties.
Van der Linden, currently on a three-day official visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina, on Friday addressed both chambers of the state parliament to explain to MPs the content and meaning of a Bosnia resolution which the Parliamentary Assembly adopted last month, suggesting, among other things, that Bosnia should change the political and administrative structure based on two entities.
You simply cannot afford that 60 percent of Gross Domestic Product goes for the spending of the state apparatus, the PACE President said adding that this was why it was necessary for Bosnia to move on from the entities structure.
He said that Bosnia cannot efficiently negotiate with the European Union on its membership bid as long as the country has three presidents of state, two entity presidents, 13 premiers, over 180 ministers and 76 parliamentary deputies at various levels in the country.
He added that a good way of changing the situation was an attempt to amend the country's constitution earlier this year but everything came to a halt when the national parliament failed to adopt the amendments.
He expressed hope that more courage would be mustered to continue with the changes after the general elections, set for October 1.
According to the resolution which the PACE adopted on 29 June, "as a first step the Assembly expects people and politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina to again discuss constitutional reform immediately after the October general elections."
The PACE document also reads that "although it would probably not be realistic to expect that Bosnia and Herzegovina move quickly from a system based on ethnic representation to a system based on representation of citizens, drafting a completely new Constitution would certainly in the long run be preferable to trying to improve the Dayton one."
During a debate which ensued in the Bosnian Parliament after Van der Linden's speech today, deputies from the Bosnian Muslim parties welcomed the commitment of the Council of Europe to radical changes in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
However, Serb MPs fiercely reacted accusing the oldest European institution of having attempted to destabilise Bosnia with the June resolution. They said they believed that the key to the survival of Bosnia was to preserve the entity-based system.
Responding to the accusations, Van der Linden said that he did not believe at all that one resolution could destabilise Bosnia.
If you would like to become a full member of the European family, you must do much more than before and you must know that the Dayton agreement is not good enough for that, the Dutchman said.