Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina Igor Crnadak welcomed the decision of Romania to keep EU enlargement policy in the Western Balkans among the priorities of the six-month presidency of the EU Council.
Crnadak participated at an informal meeting of EU, Western Balkans and Turkey foreign ministers in Bucharest held under the chairmanship of Romania to the EU Council.
Speaking about the finalization of the response to additional issues that the European Commission sent to BiH in June 2018, Minister Crnadak expressed the hope that BH institutions will complete the technical part of the coordination mechanism as soon as possible in order for these answers to be delivered to Brussels.
Also, it was stated that in 2019, BiH would be given the status of candidate for EU membership.
Crnadak appealed to the European institutions to, after receiving the answers, make the appropriate decisions regarding BiH in the shortest possible deadlines in order to continue the process of reforms related to the everyday lives of BiH citizens.
He also pointed out that the formation of executive power remains one of the main political priorities, and that the European path should not be a hostage to that process.
He underlined that regional cooperation, in addition to European integrations, was the most important foreign policy priority of BiH, but that the biggest obstacle for the development of regional relations was the decision of the Pristina authorities to introduce a 100 percent tax on products from Serbia and BiH.
Crnadak estimated that this decision must be canceled or suspended, and reiterated that BiH has not done anything to make such a decision.
