The drafting of the responses to the additional questions from the European Commission is being carried out in the same procedure as it was the case with the Questionnaire. The final responses will be comprised in the final document by the competent institutions at all levels of government, said spokeswoman for the Directorate for European Integration of BiH, Marina Kavaz-Sirucic in a statement to FENA.
Kavaz-Sirucic noted that the institutions from all levels of government have already made their inputs into the information system designed to support this task and facilitate the exchange of the material between a large number of participants in this project.
“The chairpersons and deputies of the working groups in the coordination system are now analyzing the input material and are preparing the working versions of the responses to additional questions of the European Commission, on which the respective working groups will give their opinion,” explains Kavaz-Sirucic.
After the working groups complete their part of the task, what follows is the verification of the responses, discussion on the possible unfinalized responses in the Forum for European Integration, translation, verification of translation, confirmation from the Council of Ministers of BiH and ultimately submitting the final responses to the European Commission.
Kavaz-Siručić points out that the European Commission in addition to the additional questions noted that it would appreciate if it could receive the responses within the period of three months, which is the end of September or the beginning of October.
“It is indisputable that institutions have previous experience in answering the Questionnaire, that the entire system is in use and that this job can be done within three-month-period. But, whether such dynamic can be achieved is something that no one can say with full certainty and reliability. As it was then, the same applies now, that the content of the responses is much more important than the deadlines,” concluded Kavaz-Sirucic.
On June 20, the European Commission forwarded the additional questions to BiH for the purpose of preparing the opinion on BiH’s application for EU membership.
