BiH has never been further from the European path, only one of the 14 EU priorities has been met in three years

Exactly three years ago, the European Union set 14 priorities for Bosnia and Herzegovina to meet candidate status, and to date only one has been fully met while the government continues to block the adoption of key laws to fight corruption. Last year, Transparency International in BiH published an analysis of the implementation of these reforms , which shows that BiH has only managed to form a Parliamentary Stabilization and Association Committee, and that is the only fulfilled priority on the European path.

No progress has been made in a year, and the House of Peoples of the BiH PA prevented the adoption of several important laws at a recent session that would ensure the prevention of corruption and the fight against organized crime, for which there is no justification.

Among the most important attempts to implement these reforms is that the House of Representatives of the BiH PA twice managed to adopt a law regulating conflicts of interest in line with international standards, but this important reform was stopped both times in the House of Peoples. public procurement and amendments to the Law on the HJPC, which are a precondition for systemic judicial reform. Instead of reform, the Republika Srpska has entered the process of passing its own law on the HJPC, which is a step towards the complete collapse of the legal order.

In the past year, in which BiH did not implement any of these reforms, there were millions of scandals in public procurement that were not processed by the judiciary, and TI BiH identified over 300 important officials who are directly or indirectly in conflict of interest. Due to the complete blockade in the Federation of BiH, the Law on the Protection of Corruption Reporters was not adopted, while the catastrophic application of these laws at other levels did not stop the persecution of people who decide to report corruption.

Also, instead of fulfilling the EU’s priorities related to ensuring electoral integrity, in BiH the holding of elections has been called into question, so that the actors of the latest blockades are slowly entering the sphere of criminal responsibility. BiH enters the election process without a budget for holding elections and with one of the worst laws in the region, especially in terms of preventing election fraud and misuse of public resources. As we already have announcements of the distribution of money before the elections and indirect vote buying, it is clear that substantial reforms are not in the interest of key decision-makers. Ruling political parties have spent time trying to resolve constitutional issues and maintain their control over the election process, while changes to prevent vote theft, manipulate polling stations and illegally fund political parties have been sidelined.

Only five priorities from the Opinion of the European Commission have been partially realized or have begun to be fulfilled, and these are mostly technical issues, and not a substantial reform that would speed up the European path. Despite the fact that the vast majority of political actors are committed to European integration, everything that has happened in the past three years clearly shows that the key goal of the ruling elites is to obstruct these reforms, preserve the levers of power and the current state of widespread corruption.

Press rls_30.05.22