Session of the Presidency of BiH ended around 6:15 pm yesterday and the agreement on the adaptation of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) was not reached.
Presidency of BiH yesterday acknowledged the report on the process of negotiations on the adaptation of the SAA that was previously adopted by the Council of Ministers of BiH.
However, as announced earlier, the Presidency of BiH did not declare about this report because there is no consensus of all three members of the BiH Presidency.
Mladen Ivanić, member of the Presidency from Republika Srpska, earlier requested that the entity government also declares on the SAA, in accordance with the coordination mechanism on the path of BiH towards the EU. The entity authorities of RS yesterday rejected the adapted SAA. Member of the BiH Presidency Dragan Čović said that they will not resort to outvoting and that this issue, as well as all other issues, will be solved by consensus.
The Presidency of BiH considered another important document at yesterday’s session. Namely, the Presidency of BiH accepted the agreed chapters of the working version of the Review of Defense and defined the guidelines for further continuation and completion of the work on this document.
Adoption of the Review of Defense is the key precondition for activation of the Membership Action Plan (MAP) in NATO.
Chairman of the BiH Presidency Bakir Izetbegović stated after the session that the guidelines defined yesterday foresee some simplifications in logistics and structure of the Armed Forces of BiH and mechanisms that will make them even more interoperable with the NATO.
“Allocations for the Armed Forces will grow as the GDP grows after the MAP is activated. We will accept that the Armed Forces are kept on this level, i.e. 9.200 active soldiers, while the reserve will consist of 4.600 soldiers,” Izetbegović said, adding that they will register 57 locations.
(Source: klix.ba/photo: FENA)
