Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will find out on March 21stwhether it opens negotiations for membership in the European Union (EU). As things stand now, that will happen, and after that BiH will need a person who will have the role of main negotiator on behalf of BiH with the European Commission.
That person will actually be the “contact point” of BiH and the EU. It is not yet known who will have this responsible role, but it is already known that politicians from the BiH entityRepublika Srpska (RS) consider that place belongs to them.
Radovan Kovacevic, a delegate in the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliament, noted that the SNSD will talk about it with partners after March 21st if BiH opens negotiations, but he is sure who the position should go to.
“Both the SNSD and RS have a large number of personnel who can perform these tasks in a professional manner and do everything to ensure that BiH adequately meets the conditions that will be in front of us,” Kovacevic said.
Kovacevic says that this person should be a political person as well as an expert when it comes to foreign policy and European integration.
“We have taken a certain position that it belongs to the RS. We think that this should be taken into account if it is known that the chairperson of the BiH Council of Ministers is from the Federation of BiH (FBiH), as well as the minister of foreign affairs and his deputy, as well as the director of the Directorate for European Integration and the chairman of the parliamentary commission for European integration.”
Kovacevic points out that SNSD already has a potential name as a candidate for that position, but does not want to go public with him until BiH officially receives the green light from the European Council to open negotiations.
The other partners are also of the opinion that this can be discussed only after BiH, but the question is whether it will be easy to reach an agreement on the name or whether a political problem will arise here as well.
Member of the Parliamentary Commission for European Integration Sasa Magazinovic (SDP) believes that the main negotiator must be a person who has a great personal capacity to carry out a very difficult job and that it is important that he works exclusively in the interest of BiH, and that it is less important which city he comes from and to which ethnic group he belongs to.
“If appointing people to very important positions, we conduct something that in slang abroad is called a ‘beauty contest’, then there is nothing to it. The chief negotiator must be professional and work in the interest of BiH, and the least important is where he comes from. The chief negotiator of BiH for the Stabilization and Association Agreement of BiH (SSP), he was a man from the RS and he did his job quite well because he formed a team of experts, not a team of party followers,” Magazinovic opined.
He emphasized that so far this topic has not been mentioned at any meeting and that it will be discussed when the time comes, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
