Mr Jean-Eric Paquet, Director for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo* in the European Commission Directorate-General for Enlargement, and the Chairman of the BiH Council of Ministers H.E. Vjekoslav Bevanda, will co-chair the second meeting of the joint EU-BiH working group on the implementation of EU funded projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday 02 April 2014 in Sarajevo.
This meeting follows on from the first working group meeting of 13 March 2014 when a set of concrete measures were agreed to accelerate on-going projects in the value of 210 million euro and to ensure an early start of additional projects in the value of 150 million euro that are yet to be contracted. It will be reviewed whether implementation of these measures is on track.
The Working Group will also advance preparations for the new Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (2014-2020). In this context, country wide sector strategies and strategic priorities for 2014 to 2017, as well as priorities for concrete projects to be financed from the 2014 IPA budget will be discussed. The focus will be on economic and social development, rule of law and the fight against corruption.
The Chairman of the BiH Council of Ministers, H.E. Vjekoslav Bevanda, FBiH Prime Minister, H.E Nermin Niksic, RS Prime Minister, H.E. Zeljka Cvijanovic, Mayor of Brcko District BiH Anto Domic and the Director of BiH Directorate for European Integration, Ms Nevenka Savic, will attend the meeting.
In the second part of the meeting on Thursday 3 April 2014, Director Paquet will discuss the same issues with representatives of civil society. The Commission attaches great importance to the involvement of the civil society in the pre-accession process. This should contribute to deepening citizens’ understanding of and involvement in the reforms Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to complete to qualify for EU membership. This should help ensuring EU accession is a broad based and well-understood process, which is crucial to achieving a well-informed decision on EU membership at the end of the pre-accession process.
Approximately 30 representatives from civil society shall participate, including from organisations that have been chosen earlier through an open process for those interested to be consulted on programming related to specific IPA sectors. Civil society organisations with a broad remit represented in the Board of the overarching technical assistance project of the EU for supporting the development of civil society shall also participate.
