The Srpska member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina believes that Republika Srpska should publish its own 2013 Population and Housing Census results through its Statistics Institute and that the Serb representatives in the State Agency for Statistics should withdraw from the institution.

”It is obvious that the representatives from the Federation of BiH have continued the policy of outvoting and that no one takes it seriously that the only stable future for BiH in the long run is to achieve compromise, because outvoting will not yield any results,” Mladen Ivanic told Srna commenting on the outcome of the Wednesday’s emergency session of the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly regarding the census.

He believes that it is now time to execute the conclusion reached between him and Srpska President Milorad Dodik in Banjaluka.

”I think that the representatives of the Srpska Statistics Institute from Banjaluka and the key Srpska representatives in the BiH Agency for Statistics should no longer give legitimacy to the census results with their presence,” said the Serb member of the BiH Presidency.

According to Ivanic, the announcement made by Banjaluka that Republika Srpska will publish its census results should be an official stance.

Ivanic believes that the census will have no consequences in BiH whatsoever because it will never be applied or accepted as legitimate or complete.

“This has been some sort of a needless conflict which never should have occurred,” he said.

As far as further decision making goes, said Ivanic, his view has already been made public and he sticks by it.

”Whenever there is any kind of risk for Republika Srpska, I don’t intend to take part in making decisions at the level of the BiH Presidency. On the contrary, I will try to make sure that in every possible case decisions are made with full consensus. If I get outvoted, I will raise the issue of vital national interests,” Ivanic said adamantly.

The emergency session of the BiH House of Representatives regarding the 2013 population census ended late on Wednesday with the representatives failing to uphold the conclusions of the Republika Srpska deputies, who asked that the decision on a common census data processing programme, which was made by Agency for Statistics Director Velimir Jukic, be declared null and void, that the deadline for the publication of the census results be extended until December 31, and that the decision on the common census data processing programme be retracted. /end/ds