Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH),Elmedin Konakovic is participating in the ministerial meeting as part of the 12th European Union (EU) Strategy Forum for the Danube Region, which is being held on Brdo near Kranj (Brdo pri Kranju) in Slovenia. They discuss EU enlargement, FRONTEX BiH, support of the Danube Region Program to accession countries, recovery of Ukraine, energy and transport challenges of the region, and the inclusion of young people in the Strategy and occupations that will be needed in the future. Konakovic commented on Italy’s claims about stricter border controls due to the situation in Palestine and that “extremists” could threaten EU countries from BiH.
When asked about the formation of Frontex in BiH, which will perform border work, Elmedin Konakovic said that this story has finally been resolved and that BiH Security Minister Nenad Nesic has formed working bodies that should solve this long-awaited problem.
“I think that by the end of the year, the EU should arrange the story called Frontex in BiH because we all care about better border control in BiH. We ourselves have some security and other challenges due to the arrival of a large number of migrants. I think that the story about Frontex BiH is going in the right direction and that by the end of the year, we should have finished the story in terms of signing the agreement. I don’t know when the first Frontex border forces would be on the border, that’s more a question for the EU, but what’s up to us, and after a long standstill, BiH should resolve this situation,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH.
In response to claims coming from Italy that border controls should be strengthened and that threats from extremism come from the Western Balkans, more precisely, BiH, Konakovic said that he strongly rejects such claims.
“Too often people are playing with fire, I can say that freely about unfounded radicalism and extremism in BiH, which of course I strongly oppose. We have our own security challenges, which are no less than European ones. We have all raised a new level of security forces and services because of everything that is happening in Ukraine, Gaza, and Palestine, because of the reaction of a certain number of people who have a certain level of emotion about it. It is fertile ground for a spark to ignite somewhere. We do not rule out, as in some other European countries, that some security problems can happen, but our services and our agencies that do their job professionally do not have that kind of information, as well as this story about migrants who are kept under control, and which used to be a much bigger problem for BiH,” Konakovic said.
“We had readmission problems with Serbia, which seem to me to be somewhat better now and in the past period, so we are making maximum efforts and we even received certain praise from high EU officials in the last visits and that we have made strides there. Only together, we can solve this story about migrants. Migrants do not only come from BiH, they pass through BiH, but first enter somewhere through the EU, so it is important to emphasize that and we need joint cooperation here,” he said.
He stressed that due to some information, he personally went to the Lipa camp a few months ago when he heard about some worrying numbers and messages from local politicians who gave excessive importance to it, and he was convinced that the situation in the Lipa camp and other camps was completely under control and that, at that time, he saw those problems with readmission with Serbia, N1 reports.
E.Dz.
