The Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday passed a new law on the prevention of conflict of interest, one of the conditions set by the European Commission so that in March it could recommend that the European Council decide on launching accession talks with BiH.

The House of Representatives and the House of Peoples confirmed at extraordinary sessions, by the votes of deputies whose parties make up the ruling majority and under fast-track procedure, the law in the form in which it was adopted on Wednesday by the BiH Council of Ministers after months of negotiations.

“This law is a priority for BiH on the journey to the European Union, failure to adopt it would have harmful consequences,” Justice Minister Davor Bunoza told MPs while explaining the need to adopt the law under fast-track procedure.

Compared with the previous law that was imposed back in 2002 by the then High Representative, the new Law on the Prevention of Conflict of Interest envisages stricter checks of assets and additional activities of office-holders as well as of their family members. Office-holders will be under the obligation to report all movable property worth more than €2,500 as well as real estate. They and their family members will not be allowed to receive gifts worth more than €100 or to hold any posts in organisations co-financed from the budget with more than €10,000.

The list of an office-holder's assets will be publicly available in a special register, and all data on assets and possible conflicts of interest will be checked by an independent commission comprised of non-party members. The commission will have the possibility of imposing fines of up to €10,000, as well as decide on possible replacements due to noncompliance with the law.

The BiH Parliament previously adopted a law on the prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing, on which the EU insisted as part of the “3+1” legislative set that envisaged also the adoption of a law on courts and technical changes to the country's election law to introduce new technologies for monitoring the integrity of the election process.

https://n1info.ba/english/news/bosnia-adopts-crucial-legislation-on-its-eu-path/

The ruling majority has not agreed on the law on courts due to a dispute regarding the location of the appellate division of the Court of BiH, and there has also been no agreement on changes to the election law because the Croat HDZ BiH party insists that along with technical changes, they should also adopt new rules for the election of the Croat member of the BiH Presidency. The three parties making up the Bosniak-civic bloc are against this, insisting that the changes be part of a package as part of which all judgements by the European Court of Human Rights would be adopted as well.

BiH politicians hope the adoption of the two laws will suffice for EU heads of state or government to approve the launching of accession talks with BiH at a meeting set for 21-22 March.

Bosnia and Herzegovina applied for candidate status in 2016 but due to the lack of expected reforms, it was given candidate status only in late 2022.