In a four-year period, Switzerland will not only continue to provide assistance to BiH, but will also increase aid, announced at today’s meeting between the Deputy Chairman of the BiH Council of Ministers Zlatko Lagumdžija and the Vice-President of the Swiss Confederation and the Swiss Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Burkhalter in Sarajevo.
During the meeting they discussed the improvement of bilateral cooperation between the two countries, as well as of multilateral and regional questions, given that Switzerland will be the co-chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from 2014-2015. It will also be extensively present in BiH, and their activities are especially important for regional cooperation.
Given the upcoming Swiss Chairmanship of the OSCE, it is proposed that Switzerland appoints a special representative of the OSCE for the Western Balkans, with which the focus of the Chairmanship would shift to this region’’, said Lagumdžija.
Switzerland’s bilateral assistance to BiH, which was in the last period focused on four segments (rule of law, economics with particular emphasis on youth employment and development of small and medium businesses, healthcare and local infrastructure development) in the next period will increase by 20 percent, from 12.5 million to 15 million euros and will be primarily focused on strengthening economic capacity and harmonizing legislation with European standards.
Talks of several bilateral agreements (on social insurance, avoidance of double taxation on duel citizenship) have been initiated, and it was said that the BiH Minister of Foreign Affairs plans to organize more economic forums in different parts of the world this year.
Lagumdžija hopes that such a forum could be organized in Switzerland, which would improve economic cooperation.
Burkhalter said that the focus of his first visit to BiH, which began the Balkan tour, is the intensification of bilateral relations and a more concrete contribution to regional cooperation.
He said that bilateral cooperation is intensive, and there are strong human connections due to a large number of people of BiH heritage living in Switzerland.
When it comes to future bilateral cooperation, there are clearly focused projects in the area in which Switzerland intends to lend support in the process of constitutional reform, as well as to support projects in education, healthcare and economic cooperation.
Burkhalter said that the two sides will have negotiations this week on the agreement on the avoidance of double taxation and that if everything goes according to plan, this agreement could soon be signed.
Burkhalter arrived in Sarajevo today, and he plans to meet with the members of the BiH presidency.
