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I am very grateful, Mr Speaker, for permission to address this House today. It is, I know, a somewhat unusual thing for an international official to take the floor here. But I stand before you today because of the profound importance I attach to the subjects on your agenda here this morning, and I want to take this opportunity to urge you in the strongest terms to do the right thing - to put country before party, to put the future of the Federation above narrow sectional interest. You are being asked to give your approval to the Special Relations Agreement between the Republic of Croatia and the Federation of BiH. I strongly urge you to do so. Let me explain my reasons for doing so. This Agreement on special relations between Croatia and the BiH Federation, which took many, many hours of painstaking negotiation, is right for the Federation and right for Croatia. It protects and furthers the interests of both. By approving this agreement today, you will make the distance between Sarajevo and Zagreb a shorter one. You will mark the beginning of the end to mutual hostility and suspicion, and the beginning of mutual trust. You will open a new chapter of co-operation. You will install a framework for a responsible and structured dialogue between Croatia and the Federation, which will enhance mutual understanding and promote stability. In other words, you have the chance today to make a difference - or to turn the agreement into another historical document that merely gathers dust. The choice therefore is clear and it matters. By approving and implementing this agreement, you will be opening the door to new jobs, new trade, new growth. You will be saying 'yes' to integration with Europe. You will be reconnecting the sinews and arteries of co-operation severed by war. There will be some, on both sides, who will try to de-rail this process, who will claim that by saying 'yes' today you will be selling out, selling the Federation short, and surrendering some vital Bosniac or Croat interest. I say the opposite. I say that if you fail to approve this agreement today, you will be letting the Federation down and selling your people short. The Federation needs this agreement and it needs it now. There is no hidden agenda here. The agreement is there for all to see. What you see is what you get. I was intimately involved throughout the lengthy negotiations. And I can tell you that your negotiators did a superb job. They fought hard and tenaciously for every point. They stood up firmly for the Federation's interests. I would ask you to stop second-guessing them. But they also knew a good agreement when they saw one, and they, rightly, seized the moment. To Bosnian Croats, this special relations agreement offers comfort, security and a solid basis for greater confidence in the future. To Bosniacs, it offers transparency and the hand of co-operation. You gave your negotiators authority to negotiate. They have reached a good agreement, and put their names to it last November in Zagreb. In that sense, the Federation has already given its word. Now it is up to you to honour it and to display your confidence in those you sent to negotiate on your behalf. By approving this agreement, you will make the Federation stronger today than it was yesterday. More stable. More prosperous. More closely linked to Europe - but a master of its own destiny. There are two further points. I know there are questions about the approval procedure. I confirm today the OHR's legal ruling that this agreement need not - indeed must not - be approved by the BiH House of Peoples. This is for you to approve at the Federation level. Secondly, questions have been raised about the approval procedure for the Annexes, when they are worked out. Let me be clear on this. I believe that that it should be for this House to approve the Annexes also, not least because they will require changes to legislation. It is right that you should have that democratic oversight. I have therefore asked the President and Vice President of the Federation to give you their firm commitment today that the Annexes will be submitted to this House for approval. But I would urge you to have some trust in your Ministries and Ministers who will negotiate for you. This commitment should remove any lingering doubts in anyone's mind about whether the agreement as a whole can now be ratified. Before I close, perhaps you will allow to mention one other matter of vital importance on your agenda? It is the draft law on the Federation television service. This represents another opportunity for confidence building in the Federation, and for protecting Croat interests. This parliament has an opportunity to build cohesion within the Federation by establishing a new public broadcasting service. It is time to end the legal vacuum surrounding public funded radio and television. Who benefits from this legal uncertainty? How does it protect the cultural identity of your citizens? You have a duty to provide a broadcasting service that will represent the ethnic diversity of this country. The draft law before the parliament will protect the cultural and linguistic identity of all the peoples of the Federation. It will provide for transparent financing. The non-partisan experts who worked on this law consulted with a wide range of people in and outside politics. When it comes to broadcasting paid for by taxpayers, the international community insists on one cardinal principle. There must be no direct political control of the airwaves. Linguistic or cultural identity must not be used as a disguise for political interference in the newsroom. Any remaining differences on this law should be settled promptly through the legislative process. There is no reason for further delay. The Madrid declaration obliges you to set up this broadcasting service as soon as possible. Both these issues - the SPR and the Federation TV law - have one thing in common. They both represent tests of your ability to show leadership, to show to the world and to your own people that this institution is not just an exotic debating chamber, but a functioning institution of government. I am sure you will agree with me that is the duty of political leaders to lead, not to follow, their people. The leaders in Zenica and Zepce showed that capacity when we inaugurated the multi-ethnic police there last week. We have an expression in my country: it is for each group to chain its own dog. Stop using the statements of extremists on both sides to justify your own unwillingness to move forward. BiH is a young democracy. But with youth should come vigour and energy, not paralysis and inertia. Show that today by moving forward decisively, by casting narrow partisan considerations to one side, by displaying the statesmanship and political imagination the hour demands. When the History comes to be written, let today go down as the day we left the past behind; the day on which we turned swords into plough-shares. The day on which the people of this region vowed to move forward together - united, determined, drawing on their differences as sources of strength, rather than causes of division. You have before you, I repeat, a good agreement and a good law. I commend them to you, and I urge you to seize this moment to approve them.
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