The theme of the meeting is ‘Improvement of Human Rights and Protection of Minorities in South Eastern Europe’.
This meeting is yet another opportunity for cooperation of aforementioned bodies, in order to jointly identify possibilities for improvement of status of national minorities in BiH.
Head of Office of The Council of Europe in Sarajevo Mary Ann Hennessey said to journalists that the aim of the project is to discuss the issue of national minorities in the entire western Balkans in order to enable national minority associations to work together and to strengthen their position in regional and national level.
‘Concerning BiH, no concrete improvements of human rights of national minorities have been made, at least at the official level. As a matter of fact, at the last local elections, the number of councillors in municipal councils who are members of national minorities has decreased, partly because of the inactivity of politicians concerning the issue of implementation of ‘Sejdić-Finci’ ruling’, said Hennessey.
However she did note that this ruling has raised the awareness of public about the rights of national minorities and the rights of all those who are not members of any of constituent nations in BiH.
‘The problem of this country is the lack of direct responsibility at any level of government for guaranteeing rights that BiH is obliged to do’, added Hennessey.
Supervisor of the project ‘Improvement of Human Rights and Protection of Minorities in South Eastern Europe’ Markus Jaeger said that the idea of this project is to raise the issue of protection of national minorities at the regional level, in order to see whether the solution of one country is applicable in another.
‘BiH is in the phase where many people agree to disagree and to have different opinion than others. However, it is not enough to say ‘Yes, we do have problem, and we cannot agree upon the solution. I think that common people are more open and ready to find the solution than politicians are. Simplifying legal and factual situation, which is too complex and unintelligible, is a way forward’, concluded Jaeger.
