The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina should be fully formed by August 22, said Dragan Covic, the leader of the HDZ BiH party, one of the coalition partners in the ruling majority at the state level after the meeting the coalition held in Sarajevo on Monday. He also said that by that date “at least three laws that were discussed” should be adopted as well.

Covic said that this deadline will show whether there is a mutual trust between the coalition partners.

Addressing the media after the meeting, the leader of the SNSD party and President of Bosnia's Serb-majority region Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, said that they are “coming out of a period of a great media and political uproar.”

“This means that we will fill the Council of Ministers and pass the necessary laws. We have decided that the Berlin process will result in two agreements that need to be confirmed by certain authorities,” said Dodik, referring to the regional initiatives.

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He also emphasised that the leaders discussed the judiciary, specifically the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“We agreed to form working groups for all segments of the judiciary that will propose a solution. In that period, the procedure for filling certain structures such as the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina should be initiated. Everything that was agreed, I stand behind it,” he underlined.

Host of the meeting, the Chair of the Council of Ministers Borjana Kristo was the first to address the reporters, informing them that participants of the meeting agreed “on a good part, a set of European laws that are in the parliamentary procedure.”

“We agreed to schedule a session of the House of Representatives for August 22nd, where these laws would be discussed. Some working groups are to be formed to work on a set of laws, on the rule of law, the judiciary. Working groups will be formed at the level of the Council of Ministers, which will include representatives of the executive authority,” she explained.

According to her, the coalition partners agreed to continue the talks and that the August 22 session should be preceded by another meeting, hosted by SNSD leader Dodik.

“I am convinced that we will make a strong step forward when it comes to BiH's European path,” Kristo underlined.
SDP leader and prime minister of the Bosniak-Croat Federation entity Nermin Niksic stressed that there is no alternative to talks.

“We must be open to talks even when we disagree. We managed to harmonise a set of European laws that should go to the session. If they are adopted, we are making a huge step towards the EU,” he said.

Niksic believes that this will be a good message to the EU partners.

“That would be a quality message to our partners in the European Commission and the EU that the authorities in BiH want to work on fulfilling 14 priorities. We decided to make statements without too much detail so that they would not have different interpretations,” Niksic added.