At today’s session, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the proposal of the Ministry of Security, made a decision on the minimum amount of funds needed to support foreigners during their intended stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2024.
The minimum amount of funds that a foreigner must have when entering BiH for the year 2024 is 150 BAM for each day of the intended stay or the equivalent in foreign convertible currency. It is the same amount as the previous year.
The BiH Council of Ministers adopted information on staffing and provision of material and technical resources in the sectors and administrative organizations of the Ministry of Security responsible for migration, which will be submitted to the Presidency, which requested its preparation.
The Information emphasizes the importance of systematic strengthening of material and human capacities in migration and asylum management bodies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with the need to intensify activities to fully take over migration management in accordance with adopted strategic goals in the field of migration and asylum and European Commission documents.
Timely planning of adequate budgetary funds, faster recruitment and filling of missing systematized jobs, as well as the adoption of changes to existing regulations on internal organization in order to ensure additional personnel capacities are some of the measures that need to be implemented in the coming period.
According to the Information, institutions and agencies in this area have been working for years in conditions of insufficient staffing, lack of material and technical resources, slow influx of new staff and limited budget funds.
A total of 3,949 jobs were systematized in the Ministry of Security – Immigration and Asylum Sectors, the Border Police of BiH, the Service for Affairs with Foreigners and the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), and by June 30, 2023, 3,020 of them were filled. In this period, a total of 929 jobs were unfilled, the most in the Border Police of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 601 of them, and SIPA, 225 jobs.
At the proposal of the Ministry of Security, the proposal of the basis was established and the delegation appointed for conducting negotiations and concluding the Agreement on amendments and additions to the Agreement between the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Government of the Republic of Serbia on border crossings.
In this way, it is planned that the new international common border crossing Rača – Sremska Rača will be open for the traffic of passengers and all kinds of goods, taking into account the standards of the European Union in the part related to border crossings and joint border crossing control.
The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina also passed six decisions allocating grant funds from the Ministry of Civil Affairs in 2023 to support projects in the fields of culture, sports, innovation, preparation of projects for funds from the Horizon Europe fund, and co-financing of projects of non-governmental organizations related to HIV prevention and tuberculosis in BiH.
The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina approved the Decision on the amendment of the Decision on the amount of compensation paid by the aircraft operator per transported passenger and ton of transported goods/cargo when departing from the airport in Bosnia and Herzegovina, made by the director of the Directorate for Civil Aviation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHDCA).
By supplementing the Decision, the application of the Decision on the amount of compensation paid by the aircraft operator per transported passenger and ton of transported cargo is temporarily suspended for a period of 12 months, starting from January 1, 2024.
By suspending the collection of fees per transported passenger and ton of transported goods and cargo in 2024, it will lead to a decrease in the revenue of the Civil Aviation Directorate of BiH for the amount of uncollected fees in the estimated value of more than 3.3 million BAM in this period.
The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the proposal of the Ministry of Security, made a decision on the approval of the multi-year project “Financing services for the expansion and maintenance of the Integrated Video Surveillance System of the Border Police of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the System for Automatic Recognition of Registration Plates at the Border Crossings of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, worth a total of 3.3 million BAM.
Funds will be provided successively from the budget of BiH institutions and international obligations for the period 2024 – 2026.
Previously, the BiH Council of Ministers adopted the Information of the Ministry of Security on the establishment of the Integrated Video Surveillance System of the Border Police of BiH and the System of Automatic Recognition of Registration Plates at the Border Crossings of Bosnia and Herzegovina through the IPA 2015 State Program.
These systems are important for more effective and faster checks of persons and vehicles in order to improve the process of detecting possible perpetrators of criminal acts and misdemeanors and to speed up the process of controlling passengers and vehicles when crossing the state border, according to the Council of Ministers of BiH.
