”The authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) missed the deadline to harmonize the draft of the “Reform Agenda” and send it to the European Commission, ” announced on July 24ththe chairperson of the Council of Ministers of BiH, Borjana Kristo.
The reform agenda is a list of socio-economic reforms that the BiH authorities plan to implement in the next three years.
With this fund, worth six billion euros, the European Union (EU) seeks to support reforms in the countries of the Western Balkans in the period from 2024 to 2027 and accelerate their path to EU membership. Of that sum, one billion euros is intended to support BiH.
However, if the country does not meet the preconditions for support, the EU may decide to suspend the payment or redirect the funds to other countries.
“The working team for drafting the Reform Plan in BiH did not adopt the draft of the Reform Agenda, because the representatives of the four cantons did not give their consent to the proposed draft of the document, despite the additional deadline of two days, which was approved by the European Commission”, stated the chairman Kristo.
She added that Central Bosnia, Tuzla, Zenica-Doboj, and Una-Sana cantons did not give their consent to the Draft Reform Agenda, which is why BiH is the only country in the Western Balkans that did not submit the draft Reform Agenda to the European Commission.
”Unfortunately, despite all the efforts and support we received from European institutions, it was not enough for all of us in BiH to show a minimum dose of political responsibility and direct our activities towards a common European path,” said the chairwoman of the BiH Council of Ministers.
Kristo, who also chairs the working team for drafting the Reform Agenda, did not explain in detail why the authorities of these four cantons refused to support the draft of this document.
Members of the Working Team for drafting the reform plan are four state ministers, two entity prime ministers and two finance ministers, ten cantonal prime ministers, along with the directors of the Directorate for Economic Planning and the Directorate for European Integration of BiH.
They were supposed to present their proposals and agree on a plan that the BiH Council of Ministers would send to Brussels, Radio Slobodna Evropa.
