How much progress has BiH made in fulfilling the Moneyval conditions, and whether it will join the risky countries, attractive to international criminals and money launderers, will be known in three days. The BiH delegation, in Helsinki, presents our results. They defend what has been done, but is it possible to defend the absence of key solutions due to political blockades? Will our country be on the grey list until 2031, until the next Moneyval evaluation?
Without key reforms
The BiH delegation delivered partial reforms at the end of the deadline, but not the key one.
Without a state law and an agency for the management of illegally acquired assets, we are one step away from obtaining the status of a high-risk country, especially for financial investments. The policy is against the profession, and the law is blocked due to the RS position that property confiscated by the judgments of the Court of BiH should be divided ethnically.
“The property seized by the Court of BiH is the property of BiH. There is no discussion, no talk. Anything below that and agreeing to any other option would simply be the collapse of the state system. Who will manage a company today or tomorrow, with a hundred employees? Who will manage a building that the Court of BiH may seize, it will simply fall into disrepair. Who will manage the cars that are probably in some depots?”, said Emir Bašić, Director of the Agency for the Management of Seized Property of the FBiH.
Laws and a register with clear data on the owners of legal entities are now a political, not a technical, issue, on which BiH is losing international credibility, and domestic authorities are showing that political prestige is more important than that and that the blockade is a cost-effective method of work.
“This is specifically the SNSD that in these situations is obstructing the adoption of laws that are a necessity for BiH and will pay the price for the people who are in this part of BiH called the BiH entity RS and their businessmen, their citizens,” said Elmedin Konaković, Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH.
“We are still trying, we are talking, when you say with colleagues from the SNSD, I would not exclude colleagues from the Troika parties, there is always something when you want to block something or want the agenda not to be adopted. You are right here. So, colleagues Košarac and colleague Amidžić have some reservations about this law,” said Josip Brkić, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH.
Consequences of the grey list
Less foreign investments, more expensive loans, stricter banking controls – these are the consequences of being placed on the grey list, and this would mean financial isolation and a lower economic ranking for BiH.
“Being greylisted is not the end of the world. It is an ugly message, a bad message to investors, a bad message to everyone outside regarding the political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina itself, for business, claims Jasmin Mahmuzić, Director of the Banking Agency of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“The transactions themselves for citizens, for the economy, especially those businessmen who deal with exports and imports, where they had a large number of international transactions, may even feel a liquidity crisis in a certain way, given that the collection of transactions between abroad will be significantly slowed down,” said Edis Ražanica, Director of the Association of Banks of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Whether the last chance for BiH to be one step closer to the EU single market and a business environment without obstacles has been lost, and whether our delegation has managed to postpone this grey scenario, will be known on May 8. The final decision should be made in early June at the plenary session of the Financial Action Task Force.
