The activation of Bosnia’s Membership Action Plan (MAP), an essential step for the country toward NATO membership, is the best news for Bosnia in 2018, and the differing views on the issue by the main Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat parties in the country are not an obstacle to their alliance, the Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister told N1 on Tuesday.
“This is the result of the work which started in 2009 when the Bosnian Presidency made the political decision for Bosnia and Herzegovina to become a member of the MAP process,” Josip Brkic said.
Brkic comes from the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ), the main Bosnian Croat ethnic-oriented party in the country. HDZ leader Dragan Covic has repeatedly said he is firmly in favour of Bosnia becoming a NATO member.
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The HDZ has recently entered an alliance with the Bosnian Serb ethnic-oriented Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), whose hardline leader and current Chairman of Bosnia’s Presidency, Milorad Dodik, vehemently opposes Bosnia’s NATO membership.
The disagreement, however, is not obstructing their cooperation, Brkic said.
He explained that after the Bosnian Presidency decided to adopt the MAP, the country was given conditions for its activation which were decided on at a NATO summit of Foreign Affairs Ministers in the Estonian capital Tallinn in 2010.
Bosnia has been working on meeting those conditions since then, he said.
Last week, NATO foreign ministers approved the Membership Action Plan for Bosnia.
