F. State symbols (Article I.6)

Symbols. Bosnia and Herzegovina shall have such symbols as are decided by its Parliamentary Assembly and approved by its Presidency.

Bearing in mind the manner in which the Constitution was made, it is not a surprising fact that efforts to define the state symbols had failed in Dayton. The signatory parties agreed that the authorities for making decisions on symbols shall be vested in the Parliamentary Assembly provided that the decision is confirmed by the Presidency.

For years the members of the Parliamentary Assembly were not able to reach an agreement about the common state symbols, so on 3 February 1998 the High Representative simply imposed the symbols.³⁸² The same happened with the state hymn. The High Representative imposed it by issuing his Decision on Imposing the State Hymn of BiH.³⁸³ In addition to the design of flag, the design of the coat of arms and the melody of the hymn, the mentioned laws have also regulated the use of those symbols.

No agreement has been reached on the lyrics of the hymn so far. That is indicative of the lack of integrative force in the State and speaks volumes about that issue. The state symbols, such as the flag, the coat of arms and the hymn, including state holidays,³⁸⁴ are usually a part of the state’s identification, i.e., of its state related identity. As to the former state symbols which were accepted after the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina had promulgated its independence (the white flag and coat of arms with lilies), the Serb and Croat representatives in the Parliamentary Assembly refused to accept them, although, from the historical point of view, those symbols have no features that would be considered exclusively Bosniak features.³⁸⁵ The flag and coat of arms, whose noticeably neutral and perhaps sterile content was purposely chosen, were not particularly accepted. In a situation where at least three different peoples exist, or the peoples having the feelings of such affiliation, and where a common unifying identity is still missing such as, for instance, the identity of the European Union, it is almost impossible to reach an agreement about symbols of such a lacking identity. If we take into account that the identity is largely defined as distinctiveness in relation to other identities, then it is not surprising that the groups feeling closer to the neighbouring countries across the state border do not expect much benefit from the union, which they definitely did not join voluntarily. Moreover, during the decades under Tito’s regime, no strong BiH identity was developed, which would be different from the identity of other socialist Yugoslav republics and the reason was the lack of any identification feature – either unifying ethnicity, economic, social or political unity. If such an identity had ever existed in the history of the republic, it was neutralised in the ethnic conflicts of the world wars.

This fear of any possible integrative feature of the new Bosnia and Herzegovina, except for the formal symbols such as the flag, coat of arms and hymn, is also related to other less important state symbols, such as registration plates, bank notes³⁸⁶ and passports.³⁸⁷