After the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of BiH accepted the Bill on the New Zenica Iron Plant, the House of Peoples of the PFBiH also convened an extraordinary session on this topic for today.
If approved in the same text as the House of Representatives, the law can enter into force upon publication in the Official Gazette.
The proposer of the act is the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which requested that both houses consider it under an urgent procedure, which the House of Representatives carried out in an extraordinary session on Monday. In the end, he accepted the law with 70 votes. No one voted against, only three deputies abstained.
Voting was done by oral declaration based on the individual roll call of the members of the House. Such a modus operandi was requested by three parties – the ruling Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the opposition Party of Democratic Action and the Democratic Front, after the previous secret declaration by electronic means did not even have the necessary 50 votes for the law. The Rules of Procedure allow this way for parliamentary parties or individuals to express doubts about the outcome of the electronic statement and request a second round of individual oral statements of all present members of the House. It is a condition that the request for re-voting is supported by at least 14 representatives by a show of hands.
The full official name of the act is the Proposal of the Law on the Procedure of Extraordinary Administration in the Business Company Nova Željezara Zenica d.o.o. Zenica is of special systemic importance for the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Federal Minister of Energy, Mining and Industry Vedran Lakić said at the session of the House of Representatives on Monday that they should actually decide on the controlled restructuring of the Zenica steel plant, the protection of jobs and the preservation of the industrial system of Zenica and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Restructuring, consolidation of the company and preservation of production are the ultimate goals, according to him. The law gives a chance for the survival of the company and the restart of production, Minister Lakić also asserted.
