We came very close to an agreement, McElhaney, told a news conference in Sarajevo which he called to explain what went on yesterday in his residence where representatives of seven political parties talked for nearly six hours about constitutional reforms, but despite some announcements, failed to sign a final document,
The US ambassador, who together with US deputy assistant state secretary Rosemary DiCarlo tried to get Bosnian politicians to reach a compromise, said it was important that the majority of the contentious issues had been harmonised and that the only issue left was the way of electing the future president of Bosnia-Herzegovina and two vice presidents who would also be members of the three-member state Presidency.
Representatives of Croatian parties from Bosnia, Dragan Covic of the Croatian Democratic Union and Miljenko Brkic of the Croatian People's Union, declined to accept the current way of electing members of the state leadership. They insisted that the future president and two vice presidents be elected either by a parliamentary vote or directly as it has been the case so far, on condition that the entire Bosnia-Herzegovina be one election unit.
Ambassador McElhaney said it was agreed that the only remaining outstanding issue be solved by accepting the standpoint to be adopted by the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe advisory body on constitutional and legal issues.
The negotiating parties agreed that the future Presidency would have only ceremonial powers and that rotations at the helm of the body would take place every 16 months
The Council of Ministers of Bosnia-Herzegovina would have a president and not a chairman at its helm as has been the case until now and two new ministries would be set up.
The House of Representatives would have 87 instead of the current 42 deputies. The authority of the House of Peoples will be significantly reduced.
The Constitution would include regulations guaranteeing the precedence of international agreements over domestic laws. An institution of the ombudsman on the state level would be set up.
Of the eight political parties that participated in the negotiations, seven accepted the solutions mentioned above.
The solutions were rejected only by the Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina (SBiH), whose informal leader Haris Silajdzic launched a harsh campaign aimed at convincing the public that the proposed amendments were only strengthening the entities and leading towards the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The SBiH did not attend Wednesday's meeting in McElhaney's residence.