The Prime Minister of the Federation of BiH and the President of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of BiH, Nermin Nikšić, today expressed the expectation that the European Commission’s report on the fulfillment of obligations for the start of negotiations on full membership of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the European Union would be positive one, after a long series of negative reports.
“When we took power, we promised the citizens that we would initiate reforms, we promised that we would fix the damaged image of BiH in the world, that we would speed up BiH’s path to the EU, and we also promised that we would not deal with populism, but with solving the real problems of the citizens. We do our best to make it so. Instead of finding justification for failure, we are looking for a way to get Bosnia and Herzegovina moving and to end years of blockades,” Prime Minister Nikšić said.
As he pointed out, it is not going as they would like “because we have quite tough coalition partners”. That is why the adoption of important laws and the implementation of reforms are significant for all BiH citizens conditioned by discussions and compromises which, as he states, sometimes last longer than they should.
“So, I am not satisfied with the speed with which we fulfill our obligations, but some things have been moved from the deadlock. I sincerely hope that the report of the European Commission on the fulfillment of obligations for the start of negotiations on full membership of BiH in the EU would be positive, after a long series of negative reports on BiH,” emphasized Nikšić.
He believes that the recent visit of the president of the European Commission to Bosnia and Herzegovina is in favor of this, because high-ranking EU officials previously came to criticize the government for the lack of reforms, “while this time we still heard some praise and recognition”.
He expressed his gratitude to the EU for the assistance provided to BiH and with which the political and economic development of the country can be achieved more quickly. He especially thanked the EU for allocating six billion euros for the countries of the Western Balkans, namely two billion grants and four loans, which are conditional on the implementation of reforms.
“Our goal is to ensure with additional reforms that we attract as much of these funds as possible to BiH and that through them we finance economic, infrastructural and other projects of importance for citizens throughout BiH,” said Nikšić.
Tomorrow, the European Commission will publish the annual Report on BiH’s progress on the path to the European Union, and for now, it is being speculated whether Brussels would give the green light for the opening of accession negotiations with BiH.
