SARAJEVO – The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina should be fully formed by 22nd August, as announced by Dragan Čović, the leader of the HDZ BiH, one of the coalition partners in the ruling majority at the state level. After meeting with the coalition partners in Sarajevo on Monday, Čović said that, by that date, at least three laws related to the EU accession process should be adopted as well.
Čović assessed that this deadline will show whether there is mutual trust between the coalition partners.
Addressing the media after the meeting, the leader of the SNSD party and President of Bosnia’s Serb-majority region, Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik said that they are “coming out of a period of great media and political uproar.”
“This means that we will fill the Council of Ministers and pass the necessary laws. We have decided that the Berlin process will result in two agreements that need to be confirmed by certain authorities,” said Dodik, referring to the regional initiatives.
The Chair of the Council of Ministers, Borjana Krišto, said that the meeting participants agreed “on a good part, a set of European laws that are in the parliamentary procedure.”
“We agreed to schedule a session of the House of Representatives for August 22nd, where these laws would be discussed. Some working groups are to be formed to work on a set of laws, on the rule of law, and the judiciary. Working groups will be formed at the level of the Council of Ministers, which will include representatives of the executive authority,” she explained, as reported by N1.
According to her, the coalition partners agreed to continue the talks, and the August 22nd session should be preceded by another meeting, hosted by SNSD leader Dodik. “I am convinced that we will make a strong step forward when it comes to BiH’s European path,” Krišto underlined.
SDP leader and prime minister of the Bosniak-Croat Federation entity, Nermin Nikšić, stressed that there is no alternative to talks. “We must be open to talks even when we disagree. We managed to harmonize a set of European laws that should go to the session. If they are adopted, we are making a huge step towards the EU,” he said. Nikšić believes that this will be a good message to the EU partners.
“That would be a quality message to our partners in the European Commission and the EU that the authorities in BiH want to work on fulfilling 14 priorities. We decided to make statements without too much detail so that they would not have different interpretations,” Nikšić concluded.