The Minister of Communications and Transport of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Edin Forto, will support the protest of carriers and professional drivers announced for August 31 in Sarajevo and will join them in the request that the issue of their residence and work in the European Union be urgently resolved.
“I will be with the carriers and drivers on August 31. The right to work is not a privilege. This is the message that we should send together to the European Commission,” said Forto.
At the meeting of the Working Group of the European Commission, the Ministry of Communications and Transport of Bosnia and Herzegovina has already proposed a concrete temporary solution that would allow professional drivers from Bosnia and Herzegovina to restart the calculation of allowed days of stay in EU member states until the establishment of a system for issuing long-term visas.
The Ministry also asked the European Commission, within the existing legal framework, to consider implementing measures or guidelines that would enable a more flexible application of the 90/180 day rule for professional drivers, without the need for changes to the current legislation of the European Union.
“Drivers are not people who go to the European Union to stay there. They enter the EU to do work and return home. For this reason, we cannot accept that a professional driver engaged in international transport is treated as someone who is trying to circumvent the residency rules. We offered the European Commission a practical solution that can be applied until we reach a permanent model. Now we expect an answer and a decision,” said Forto.
Increasingly frequent cases of refusal of entry, detention and deportation of professional drivers due to the application of the 90/180 day rule are no longer only a problem of the transport sector. They directly threaten the operations of companies, international trade and supply chains that connect Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union.
“This is not just a matter of a few thousand drivers. Without them there is no export, no import and no normal functioning of a large part of the economy. That’s why on August 31st we stand with the transporters, and we expect the European Commission to hear the message coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina: we are not looking for privileges, we are looking for an implementable solution that will enable people to do their jobs,” concluded Forto, the Ministry of Communications and Transport of Bosnia and Herzegovina announced.
