Fuele convened a meeting with all Bosnian political leaders in Brussels on October 1 to discuss the enforcement of a European Court of Human Rights ruling in the Sejdic-Finci case.
Speaking to the press, Stier said the joint question was aimed at sending out a clear message of support for Bosnia's European prospects and "the message that without Croats there is no Bosnia and Herzegovina, therefore, without Croats there is no European Bosnia and Herzegovina either."
The question asks to what extent the Brussels meeting will launch the solving of the issue of Bosnian Croats' institutional equality and what Fuele's approach will be.
Implementing the ruling in the Sejdic-Finci case is a requirement the European Union has set for Bosnia and Herzegovina to progress in European integration. It has been announced that unless the ruling is implemented, the international community will not recognise the results of Bosnia's 2014 parliamentary election. The European Union said that Bosnia cannot submit a credible application for membership without that. In Bosnia, however, no progress has been made in dealing with the issue.
The implementation of the ruling envisages rescinding a provision under which the Bosnian Presidency is made of one member of the Bosniak, Croat and Serb peoples each, because it violates the rights of citizens of other nationalities to be elected to the body. The ruling also calls for solving the issue of the House of Peoples because it has no representatives other than those three constituent peoples.
Picula says the division between the national and the civil approach to reorganisation must not be treated as an ideological issue, but as a confrontation of political interests.
"It indeed would not be good if in solving one issue, another one should be marginalised which, after all objective analyses, is the unequal position of the Croat people in Bosnia," he said.
This question is support to Commissioner Fuele to raise the issue of the position of Bosnian Croats at the October 1 meeting, Stier said, adding that it was necessary to find a more just way of electing members to the Bosnian Presidency so that the Croat representative was not chosen by others.
Picula said Croatia strongly advocated Bosnia's European future but that it was a hostage to the obsolete and ineffectual Dayton order.
Bosnia will not be able to equally compete for EU membership until institutional circumstances are provided for the full equality of Bosnia's citizens and constituent peoples, he added.