Trilateral ministerial meeting of BiH, Croatia and the European Commission, dedicated to finding the solution to open issues between BiH and Croatia ended yesterday in Brussels with a deal on several important issues.
After a year of negotiations BiH has managed to clearly articulate its demands on two trilateral meetings and several technical trilateral meetings and to make significant concessions from the EU in order to minimize the negative implications of Croatian accession to the EU on BiH, its citizens and economy, states the report.
They’ve agreed that BiH will continue to use port Ploče under favourable conditions even after Croatia enters the EU, and that BiH will be able to export its industrial goods and agricultural goods through the port.
They also made significant agreement relating the export. BiH has obliged itself that it will not import goods that of plant and animal origin which are not in concordance with EU standards in relation to animal health, because in that way BiH wants to protect its consumers.
They also agreed that after 1 July, citizens of BiH who live in border region will be able to cross the border with special permits, without passports. Croatia will ask other EU countries to keep no-passport regime for BiH citizens even after 1 July.
At the meeting, last obstacles concerning the construction of Gradiška bridge, have been removed which will significantly ease the life and business of BiH citizens. BiH has allocated money need for the construction of the bridge, and EC and Croatia also promised to do the same.
During the talks, special attention was given to Neum municipality, and BiH was guaranteed uninterrupted supply of Neum municipality through the EU territory, especially with goods need for local business.
BiH Minister of Foreign Affairs Zlatko Lagumdžija, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of Croatia Vesna Pusić and EU Enlargement Commissioner Štefan Fule attended the meeting.
Topics of the meeting were open issues between BiH and Croatia, which were previously defined as priority issues that must be solved before Croatian accession to the EU on 1 July.
