Visiting Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto expressed support of his country here on Monday to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH’s) path to the European Union (EU) membership.
After the meeting with BiH’s minister of foreign affairs Igor Crnadak, Haavisto told reporters that Finland would like to see the EU enlargement process continue, and cooperation with BiH to be enhanced.
“The EU strongly supports regional co-operation throughout the Western Balkans,” Haavisto said, adding that cooperation with BiH can be deeper and more active in the future.
“We are ready to enhance cooperation with BiH in field of environment, education, the rule of law,” Haavisto said, reminding that Finland supports BiH’s soon formation of the government in order to fulfil the priorities of the Opinion of the European Commission.
For his part Crnadak pointed out that economic relations between the two countries are “quite underdeveloped with only on a 15 million euro exchange a year, with no investment.”
“We need to bring the two business communities closer and work on regulation that will to give a formal framework to go faster. We talked about improving tourism, wood industry, forestry, renewable energy,” Crnadak said.
The main topics discussed during the meeting were bilateral relations, BiH’s integration into the EU, economy and the political situation in BiH and the region.
(Source: Xinhua, Sarajevo Times)
