European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte met with the Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency members in Sarajevo on Tuesday, but Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic did not attend the talks.

Von der Leyen and Rutte met with Presidency chair Zeljko Komsic and the other two members, Denis Becirovic and Zeljka Cvijanovic.

The Croatian delegation told Hina that Plenkovic's consistent line was not to meet with Komsic, “who was not elected as the Presidency's Croat member with the votes of the Croat people in BiH” and with whom other Croatian institutions have no contact either.

The delegation recalled that Plenkovic did not meet with Komsic during his working visits to BiH in 2021 and 2023 when Plenkovic met with officials of the BiH Council of Ministers and parliament.

“Considering that the practice of ‘outvoting’ the Croat people in the election of the BiH Presidency member was repeated in the 2022 general elections as well, the prime minister has no intention of changing his approach,” Plenkovic's office said.

Today, von der Leyen, Plenkovic and Rutte are scheduled to meet with Council of Ministers chair Borjana Kristo, her deputies and the leaders of the BiH parliament's lower and upper houses.

The three officials arrived in Sarajevo to encourage BiH politicians to deliver on reforms which are essential for the opening of the country's EU accession negotiations.

The European Council will discuss opening the negotiations in March and the decision will depend on a recommendation to be drawn up by the Commission. Last month, the EU heads of state and government concluded that for that to occur BiH is expected to deliver on at least some of the reforms the Commission defined in 2019.