Nezavisne novine: Ethnic or national background of citizens is not required question during the population census in the signatory countries, candidates and potential candidates for membership in the EU. This has been announced yesterday by Pierre Myrel, director of the General Directorate for expansion at the European Commission.
"The Council of the EU and the parliament have in June this year adopted the regulation on population census and census of households, which should be held in 2011. On the list of questions which should be found on the questionnaire, there is no the ethnic or national declaration", has been said by Myrel after the first meeting of the Interim board for monitoring the implementation of the Interim agreement with the EU, which has been held in Sarajevo. Myrel has explained that BiH, if it wants to organize the census when other countries plan it too, as soon as possible needs to bring decision on census and start preparations. He repeated how the census in the EU has been planned for 2011.
"Census is important for BiH, so it could be able to answer the list of questions after it applies for membership, or after the first negotiations start. Also, until 2013 we need to achieve the agreement on administrative units for our regional politics. Because of this, BiH needs to have the fresh data. On our list is not the ethnic or national voting, but the country can, if it wants, add some questions to our list", Myrel has added.
He invited the governments of BiH to start implement the politics of compromise, instead of conflicts and blockades, so the process of the European integrations we can make simpler and faster. Representatives of BiH and the European Commission have yesterday shortly concluded that the Agreement between BiH and the EU is by now being "smoothly implemented".
"The joint grade is that the implementation of the Interim agreement between BiH and the EU goes very well. By now we have done what was needed, but we must be aware that a real work is just waiting for us", has been said by Osman Topčagić, director of the Directorate for the European Integrations of BiH and the chairman of the Interim board for monitoring the implementation of the Agreement with the EU.