Dnevni list: The Agency for Statistics of the Federation has been already doing technical preparations for population census in BiH, which should happen in 2011, has been confirmed yesterday by the director of that agency, Derviš Đurđević.

He has said that the representatives of the entity agencies have had a meeting with the representative of the state agency for statistics, and the working groups have been formed inside each of these institutions, which already work on preparations for the census.

Preparations as if the census was to happen tomorrow

He has repeated that the three political leaders have last week agreed that the census will be held in 2011, however other parties have not yet agreed with that, or the Parliament has not yet adopted the adequate laws.

“However, we are preparing for the census as if it will happen tomorrow, and it is on politicians to agree when it will happen and what will contain”, Đurđević has said. According to him, if we want the census to happen in 2011, then all the other state institutions must include themselves in this process as soon as possible.

“The Parliamentary Assembly must adopt three laws as soon as possible, and those are the Law on Population Census, the Law on Financing the Census, and the Law on Registration”, Đurđević has said.

Condition on the European path

Let us remind that Čović, Tihić and Dodik have agreed that the population census needs to be executed in 2011 and that it contains all necessary elements according to the Euro-stat, including the question of ethnical, religious and linguistic affiliation, under the condition that the census from 1991 still remains the basis for national representation in all the state, entity, cantonal and municipal institutions by 2014. After that agreement, the Council of Ministers has obligated the statistics institutions to start the preparations for implementation of the census. Adopting the Law on Population Census is a condition from the document European Partnership. According to the Action plan of the Council of Ministers for implementing the obligations from the European Partnership, this Law should be adopted next year.