Dodik: BiH as a Union of federal states

In this setup, the country would be further decentralized and a union of federal states would be established, of which Republika Srpska would be one state. Dodik did not clarified which other states the union would exist of, but it can be assumed that a Croat and Bosniac federal state would be established which would mean that the Croat/Bosniac Federation of BiH would stop existing.

According to Dodik, the establishment of these states would not jeopardize the position of BiH, as “Republika Srpska already functions as a federal state within BiH”.

Several analysts have criticized Dokik’s proposal arguing that such proposals deepen political and ethnic rivalries in the country. Furthermore, this proposal could be seen as an attempted by Dodik to strengthen the position of Republika Srpska and to leave the opportunity open for independence in the future. After all, it is a smaller step to leave a union, rather than to break away from a country. For example, Montenegro has established a union with Serbia before conducting a referendum and becoming fully independent.

Whilst the mainly Bosniacs political parties have described the proposal as a useless public relation stunt, some Croats leaders in BiH did not object the proposal arguing that nothing about it was unacceptable.