Bosnia and Herzegovina made no progress regarding rule of law and fighting corruption, but some of the steps taken in the past few months, such as the agreement on holding elections in the city of Mostar, show that political leaders can see eye to eye and work for the benefit of citizens, EU Delegation Head, Johann Sattler, said as he handed the EC 2020 Report on Bosnia to Council of Ministers Chairman, Zoran Tegeltija.
The Report covers the past 16 months. Sattler said that this included a long period of stagnation in the country since the government was not formed and various blockades due to which precious time was lost.
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He said that Bosnia has made no concrete progress in a significant part of the priorities, but that there has been an acceleration of reforms throughout the past few months.
Sattler noted that a will to compromise could be seen in the country and exemplified this with the agreement on holding local elections this year in Mostar.
It will be the first local election in Mostar since 2008. The city did not have an election in 12 years due to a 2010 ruling by the country's Constitutional Court ruling in which several parts of the election law regarding Mostar were declared unconstitutional. It was then up to the parliament to change it.
The leaders of Bosnia’s main Bosniak and Bosnian Croat ethnic parties that won the election in 2008 could not agree on how to amend the law for more than a decade. Only recently did the Party for Democratic Action (SDA) and Bosnia’s Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) finally reach an agreement on the issue.
The Mostar agreement showed that political leaders are able to find a common language and seek solutions which are in accordance with EU standards and benefit citizens, Sattler said.
The EU official, however, pointed out that he was disappointed with the fact that no progress was made regarding rule of law.
“By the end of the year, two more laws should be adopted, the law on conflict of interest and public procurement, together with amendments to the law on the HJPC (High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council). This will enable steps forward in the realization of 14 key priorities from the Opinion,” he noted.
Bosnia has also made no significant progress on fighting corruption, he said.
As for the issue of migrations, Sattler argued that a more fair distribution of the burden is expected in the country.
According to Tegeltija, the EU might have failed to recognise all the efforts that were invested to achieve progress in Bosnia and sometimes lacked enough understanding for all the ongoing problems and processes in the country in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Two things are important to me – the report states that the Western Balkans, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a strategic interest of the EU and one of the key priorities of this Commission. So we understand that we are not a forgotten region. Also, the note that said that we have made significant steps forward in the process of joining the EU in the past few months, “ he said.
“We are continuing with the implementation of obligations we took over in the process of joining the EU. I am certain that we can succeed by spring,” he said.
