The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) did not consider the Reform Agenda at yesterday’s session either, and in July, BiH lost 108.5 million euros, or 10 percent of the funds envisaged by the Growth Plan, due to its non-adoption, according to Transparency International (TI) in BiH.
While neighboring countries are largely drawing funds, BiH lags behind even states that received the European perspective much later. Therefore, TI in BiH calls on the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH (PABiH) to hold a special session and adopt conclusions that will oblige the Council of Ministers to adopt the Reform Agenda without delay.
The authorities in BiH have repeatedly violated the deadlines they set themselves, and the European Commission has announced a new reduction of 10 percent if the reform agenda is not adopted by the end of September.
“From all this, it is evident that the key decision-makers in BiH are continuing years-long obstructions of the process of European integration, and the implementation of these reforms is crucial for establishing effective rule of law and the fight against corruption. Nevertheless, the holders of power once again put daily politics, personal and party interests ahead of the interests of citizens and foreign policy goals. With such an approach, real problems can only be expected in the process of implementation of these measures if we take into account this level of obstructions we are seeing in the adoption of the Reform Agenda itself, where at the moment only two out of 113 measures are not harmonized. These are the abolition of the entity veto in the State Aid Council and the obligation to respect decisions and fill the missing judges of the Constitutional Court of BiH,” it is stated in the press release of TI BiH.
However, many other measures in this document also represent obligations that have been repeated for years on the European path and have never been fulfilled, so it is evident that the dispute over these two measures only represents a means to sabotage the entire process of European integration, TI BiH states.
It should also be emphasized that the drafting of the Reform Agenda was marked by complete non-transparency, the Association for the Fight against Corruption stated.
“The Council of Ministers of BiH did not communicate about the process of adoption, and the public learned about the points of disagreement exclusively from opposing press releases of political parties, instead of from the institutions responsible for leading European integration. Parliaments and competent commissions remained silent observers, without attempting to put this issue on the agenda or to exert pressure on the executive branch to adopt the Reform Agenda. This process is a clear example that the mechanism of coordination of European integration, established in 2016, does not function and is being abused in key processes, from the response to the European Commission Questionnaire, through the creation of the Integration Program, to the drafting of the Reform Agenda. The right to vote of representatives of all levels of government, in combination with the rule of unanimous decision-making, regardless of actual competences, has turned the bodies of the coordination mechanism into a tool for blockades, and not for faster reform progress,” it is stated in the press release.
Because of this, TI BiH appeals to the Council of Ministers of BiH to adopt the Reform Agenda without delay, taking into account all the requirements of the European Commission, in order to enable access to funds from the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans.
They also call on parliaments and competent commissions for European integration to actualize this issue at thematic sessions and hearings, exert pressure on the executive branch to open the process to the public, and re-examine the functionality of the coordination mechanism.
TI BiH also calls on the competent institutions to stop abusing European integration, and that all laws and policies on the European path be adopted in the regular procedure, with mandatory public consultations.
