There is no better set of values for Bosnia and Herzegovina than the EU set of values, said the newly elected Head of the Pan-European organisation Osman Topcagic, speaking to N1. Bosnia’s accession into the EU would bring with it a relaxation of relations within the country.

“The European path has two dimensions. The first is the political dimension and the second is the administrative one. When it comes to the political dimension, difficult negotiations on the formation of the government are ahead of us, following the recent general election in the country,” Topcagic told N1. “This brings us to the question whether the administrative level will have to wait for the government formation. They shouldn’t because we have all the institutions and the coordination mechanism which coordinates all the obligations between the two semi-autonomous entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and the Republika Srpska (RS).”

Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of two entities, the FBiH and the RS, as well as the District of Brcko. The FBiH entity is dominated by Bosniaks and Croats and the RS, which is dominated by Serbs. The District of Brcko, on the other hand, is not dominated by any of the three constituent peoples.

According to him, the political and the administrative spheres should be divided and they should function separately. So far, Bosnia has made certain progress when it comes to its EU accession process, but Topcagic told N1 that the country is still lagging behind the countries from the region. The region as a whole is not making the expected progress.

“The EU accession is important for Bosnia for two reasons. The first is that all the EU regulations and laws which the country must adopt will lead to life improvement in the country. There is no better set of values than that of the EU. The other reason is that we’ll be equal to our neighbours in the Brussels, the seat of the EU,” Topcagic added.

Right now, he noted, the EU member states are talking about Bosnia but Bosnia cannot respond to these talks because it does not have a seat in the Brussels.

Topcagic was also convinced that relations between the main ethnic groups in the country would relax significantly once the country enters the EU. The mistrust that currently exists between the three main ethnic groups, the Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs will disappear.

The International Paneuropean Union is the oldest European unification movement. It began with the publishing of Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi's manifesto Paneuropa (1923), which presented the idea of a unified European State. It is independent of all political parties