The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Elmedin Konaković, addressed the media following a session of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, discussing the visa issuance issue within the diplomatic and consular network caused by a biometric system outage.
Konaković deemed the session solid, emphasizing that a lot of time was spent discussing a document on which ministers will have to state their position today or tomorrow morning via electronic voting.
This is a letter of political intent from the highest executive authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which seeks to implement the processes necessary for alignment with constitutional competences through an action plan, all with the aim of preventing Bosnia and Herzegovina from being blacklisted.
However, the topic that drew attention of the public and media relates to the issue with biometric data collection across the diplomatic-consular network, which practically blocked visa issuance to foreign nationals who want to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Konaković rejected the responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the newly arisen situation, shifting the blame to the Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“It seems to me that, in the end, they will have to rely on their own internal resources and experts to resolve the issue for which the Ministry of Security is exclusively responsible. It was the Ministry of Security that conducted the public procurement procedure, together with the European Union, I believe, and everything worked fine for five or six months, but it has not been functioning for nearly a month now,” Konaković said.
He also revealed the chronology of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ responses to the competent authorities, emphasizing that they had sent three urgent appeals—on May 20th, May 22nd, and June 1st—demanding an immediate reaction.
“It is true that biometric data is not being collected, and that we have a major problem with visa issuance, but it is a blatant lie that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs bears any responsibility in that process,” the Minister was emphatic.
Konaković especially addressed the public statements of his predecessor in office, Bisera Turković, directing sharp criticism towards her.
“This is a confusing statement by former Minister Turković, who headed this ministry for four years but is still unfamiliar with the competences of the ministry she led for such a long time,” Konaković said.
While an official solution from the Ministry of Security is awaited, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is proposing temporary measures to save domestic tourism at the height of the season, considering that a massive backlog of visa applications from foreign tourists is currently sitting in drawers.
“We have already proposed three times to suspend the decision on biometric data collection for as long as it takes to fix the system, so that the tourist season does not suffer. A massive backlog of requests to visit Međugorje and tour other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently on hold because we are facing this formal issue,” Konaković concluded, adding in the end that they have nevertheless received notice that the Ministry of Security could soon resolve this technical glitch, Klix.ba writes.
