TI BIH: The EU report showed no progress in fight against corruption, BiH did not even fulfill the eight conditions received with “candidate status”

Banja Luka, November 9, 2023 – The report of the European Commission showed that Bosnia and Herzegovina did not make any progress in the fight against corruption and the rule of law in the past year. Despite the recommendation for a “conditional green light for negotiations” which should encourage the authorities to finally approach the implementation of essential reforms and readiness of the EU to speed up the enlargement process, the report indicates that BiH authorities avoided passing key laws for the rule of law, a small number of “reform laws” were adopted in a version that is not satisfactory, and a series of attacks on civil liberties took place.

That is why the assessments of local officials stating that BiH has made great progress and is the only one in the region to have gone from candidate status to the opening of negotiations in 10 months, are absurd, because BiH did not even fulfill the eight conditions received with the candidate status granted by the EU in December last year.

Among the eight conditions, it was stated that Bosnia and Herzegovina will guarantee freedom of expression and the media, which cannot be considered a fulfilled condition having in mind the criminalization of defamation in the Republic of Srpska and the announcement of a series of restrictive laws intended to suppress freedom of expression. BiH was also asked to take decisive steps to strengthen the prevention and fight against corruption, where no progress has been recorded, which is clearly stated in the report. One of the conditions was the adoption of law on the prevention of conflicts of interest, which was not adopted at the level of BiH or Federation of BiH, and additional steps were taken backwards by the recent changes to this law in the Republic of Srpska. Also, the adoption of two comprehensive laws on judicial reform, namely the new Law on the HJPC and the Law on the Courts of BiH, which is also among the eight conditions for candidate status, was not adopted.

The report also states a number of objections to several “reform laws” that were recently adopted in the BiH Parliament and which the local authorities are presenting as a great success that led to a conditional recommendation for the opening of negotiations. Thus, it was stated that the recent amendments to the Law on the HJPC, with the aim of checking the property records of holders of judicial offices, were adopted in a changed version in relation to the opinion of the Venice Commission.

– Such changes hinder the effectiveness of the asset reporting system and therefore need to be supplemented, the report states.

It is also noted that the independence of the appeal process is not ensured by the new Law on Freedom of Access to Information, which civil society organizations have already warned about, because the adopted solution is worse in some segments and will additionally enable institutions to hide information of public interest from the public.

With this approach, it is difficult to expect more progress in the next four months, because this has not been achieved in the past four years, that is, since 2019, when the EU set 14 key priorities in its Opinion, of which BiH has fully fulfilled only one to date. Because of this, TI BiH once again appeals to the authorities at all levels to take advantage of the EU’s willingness to speed up the enlargement process and implement essential reforms that are primarily necessary to improve the situation in BiH itself in terms of the rule of law and fight against corruption.