The three reform laws at the top of the list of primary goals are still awaiting approval in Parliament. The working groups have been formed, the meeting of the state coalition and accountability to the citizens is awaited. And the coalition partners blame each other for this state of affairs. In the meantime, a session of the House of Peoples of the state parliament is scheduled for Friday. And it should contain the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering. If it is not adopted, Bosnia and Herzegovina is threatened by the gray list of Moneyval.
Another in a series of key weeks for the European path of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In anticipation of the new D-day and the final harmonization of positions, instead of an agreement – we lower the deadlines.
It is difficult to collect all the announcements about the “decisive seven days” in Bosnia and Herzegovina. the political scene. Pompously announced often end without much noise and concrete results. This week’s goal – to finalize the texts of the reform laws. Working groups formed, task clear.
“The three working groups, by the end of next week, we specified that they should go article by article and try to harmonize the texts of the law,” SDP president Nermin Nikšić said last Thursday.
Article by article they are harmonizing the texts and looking for a solution 5 to 12. Accountability before the European Commission at the threshold. When we add the required formula 1+3, the calculation reveals that we are not in the surplus. At least for now. The mission was successful only in the field of Frontex, and pending laws on conflict of interest and prevention of money laundering, as well as the Law on the Courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although time is running out, there is enthusiasm that we will arrive on the last train to Brussels. The leader of optimism set, he claims, a realistic term. But not everyone agrees…
“Let’s harmonize these three laws in the next seven days, by the end of next week at the latest,” said Dragan Čović, president of HDZ BiH, at the end of last week.
“You have to be an optimist 10,000 times stronger than Čović in order for me to have any faith in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” commented SNSD president Milorad Dodik.
Optimism in the coalition is not a common trait. But at least declaratively, the intention of approaching the doors of the European Union is common. But in practice, instead of results, accusations are made.
“When the working groups that need to agree on something talk, nothing comes of it because the Bosniaks gave up on the earlier agreement that we had under pressure from the American ambassador. In the end, we will conclude that they have done us a favor by not going to the EU, because it is a crumbling structure and by the time we reach the EU, it will surely fall apart”, Dodik opined.
“Someone is obstructing everything that was agreed upon. These are not representatives from the RS, but, obviously, they are representatives from the Federation of BiH”, claims Nenad Nešić, Minister of Security of BiH (DNS).
Who and why is obstructing Bosnia and Herzegovina’s European path? No one accepts the blame for small instead of large steps towards the European Union, but the ball of responsibility is shifted to someone else’s court. And where there is a will, there is a shortcut to a solution. Three laws as a request from the original 14. The list is shorter, but the members of the working groups have their hands full. Time is ticking, the will is there, the results are awaited.
“There is progress, if nothing else, in this will to make efforts to reach an agreement in the last minutes before the decision of the European Union,” said Sabina Ćudić, NS representative in the BiH House of Representatives.
And she sent Ćudić an invitation to Čović not to block the adoption of the Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest by insisting on the ethnic structure of the commission that would decide on the conflict of interest. In addition to reform obligations blowing down our necks, we are also threatened by the Moneyval Committee’s gray list. Although the European delegation is in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a short reminder – if the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering is not adopted as soon as possible, there will be serious financial consequences.
