Council of Ministers Holds Its 23rd Session Devoted to European Integrations

At today’s session, attended by Deputy head of Delegation of BE I BIH dr. Renzo Daviddi, the Council of Ministers of BIH was informed of the European Commission progress Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina for 2012. 

Ministers adopted the Information on findings and recommendations contained in the European Commission Progress Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina for 2012 and in a document titled Enlargement Strategy and Key Challenges 2012-2013.

Ministries and other administrative bodies are in charge to consider the EC Progress Report on BIH for 2012 and 2012-2013 Enlargement Strategy and Key Challenges and to include into their 2013 action plans activities for overcoming deficiencies noted in the Progress Report and Enlargement Strategy.

The Council of Ministers of BIH took a decision to appoint a team for development of coordination mechanism document in the process of European integrations, which is to define, by October 31, effective coordination mechanisms in the European Integrations process.

Saša Marić from the Office of Chairman, will be the team leader, and team members will be Boško Kenjić from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, Amer Kapetanović from the Foreign Ministry, and Daria Ramljak, from the Directorate for European Integrations. The Entity Government will each appoint two team members, and the Brčko District Government and Cantonal coordination one member each.

The report states that Bosnia and Herzegovina has made only a limited progress in fulfilment of political criteria and development of institutional structures; the same goes for the fight against corruption and process of legislation and policies harmonisation with European standards.

The key weaknesses are identified to be the absence of a credible effort in harmonisation of the BIH Constitution with the Sejdić-Finci award, lack of  a joint vision on the future of the state and its institutional settings, in addition to a full implantation of the Law on Census of Population and Law on State Aid.

The key priorities for BIH include an effective coordination mechanism in the European integrations process, political will-political agreement, i.e. concrete steps and market economy-oriented reforms.

The European Commission adopted, on October 10, 2012, “Enlargement Package for 2012”, which includes the Enlargement Strategy and Key Challenges for 2012-2013, progress reports for candidate countries and potential candidate countries, Comprehensive EC Monitoring Report on Readiness of the Republic of Croatia for EU membership, and Revised Multi-Year Indicative Financial Framework for 2013.

The Council of Ministers of BIH considered and will reflect by the end of the week on the IPA 2012 State Package for Bosnia and Herzegovina, formed by the European Commission and forwarded to the State IPA Coordinator on October 4, 2012.

Based on the presented package, the European Commission formed a 12 project package for IPA 2012 State Programme for Bosnia and Herzegovina, in overall amount of EUR 84.77 million.

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