In two years, BiH has met only one of the 14 EU priorities, the European path completely blocked

Sarajevo, May 28, 2021 – In two years, Bosnia and Herzegovina has fulfilled only one of the 14 priorities it must meet on the European path, all other processes are completely blocked and the adoption of key laws that would contribute to the rule of law and the fight against corruption is obstructed. This is the main message from the conference “Two years later: Commission Opinion on BiH’s application for EU membership” organized by Transparency International in BiH (TI BIH) on the occasion of the second anniversary of the European Commission’s Opinion on BiH’s application for membership.

TI BIH presented a report at the conference which shows that in two years BIH managed to form a Parliamentary Stabilization and Association Committee, which adopted its rules of procedure, so that only formal preconditions were created for meeting this priority.

-Everything else from the opinion of the European Commission has not been realized in its entirety, and apart from issues concerning changes to the constitution and on which it is not possible to reach a political agreement, it is completely evident that the authorities are obstructing the resolution of issues. that there is no justification. What is worrying are systemic obstructions and efforts to avoid the purpose of passing these laws through numerous attempts to adopt solutions that would be worse than the existing ones, the rating is TI BIH.

Swedish Ambassador to BiH Johanna Strömquist assessed that BiH has made very little progress in the EU integration process, which is why it suffers.

-Young and talented people are leaving the region to settle in the EU because they are tired of corruption, weak rule of law, education and health care systems. If the countries of the Western Balkans made reforms in the EU integration process, they might stay, said Strömquist.

The EU Delegation to BiH says there has been no adoption of key reform laws that could contribute to the rule of law and the fight against corruption.

– BiH must make more efforts to accelerate the European path in several specific issues. It is necessary to adopt the Law on Conflict of Interest, amendments to the Law on the HJPC as well as the improvement of the Law on Public Procurement, Krassimir Nikolov, Head of the Section for European Integration, Political and Economic Affairs, EU Delegation to BiH, said at the conference.

Also, the conference concluded that no laws have been adopted that would allow elections to be conducted in line with European standards and recommendations of the OSCE / ODIHR and the Venice Commission. Under the pretext of unresolved constitutional issues, changes in the election legislation that would prevent election fraud, theft of votes, misuse of public resources and illegal financing of political parties are also avoided.

Only five priorities from the Opinion of the European Commission have been partially realized or started to be fulfilled, action plans for public administration reform have been adopted and BiH managed to hold elections in Mostar after 12 years. It was concluded at the conference that the process of BiH’s integration into the EU has been essentially completely stopped, and if the fulfillment of 14 priorities would take place with this dynamics, it could take several decades.

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The analysis of the process of BiH’s integration into the EU: 14 priorities from the Opinion of the European Commission 2 years later , which offers a cross-section of BiH’s progress in meeting the priorities, can be downloaded below: