The Presidency of BiH has yesterday adopted the budget proposal of BiH institutions for 2009, has been notified by Nebojša Radmanović, chairman of the Presidency, after an urgent session dedicated exclusively to this question.

"I have been proposing that the Draft budget, which has been proposed by the Council of Ministers of BiH, we shift into the proposal and send it to the parliamentary procedure. The other two members of the Presidency have not accepted it by justifying it by weakening of the Institutions of BiH and have demanded a significant increase of the budget", Radmanović has explained.

The Council of Ministers of BiH has in the draft, which has yesterday been deliberated, proposed that the budget of BiH Institutions and serving of the external debt in 2009 becomes something more than 1.4 billion KM.

"Regarding the fact that the Fiscal Council of BiH has on two occasions deliberated the Draft budget and agreed on that issue, I thought that is better for us to send such proposal to the Parliament and avoid latencies and delays regarding this question", Radmanović has said.

He added that Željko Komšić and Haris Silajdžić outvoted him regarding this proposal, as well as with their request that members of the Fiscal Council should be invited next week to a meeting in order to agree possible corrections of the budget.

"In my opinion, there was no need for us to lose the time on one more meeting if the Fiscal Council has already declared itself on the budget", Radmanović has said and repeated that he does not approve the budget increase in a year when the financial crisis is being announced.

The Presidency of BiH has at the yesterday’s session adopted the decision on return of the unit of the Armed forces of BiH from Iraq by December 15th this year.

Radmanović has said that yesterday, after a long time, the document “Defense Policy” of BiH has been adopted, liaison officers for the Mission of the NATO have been nominated, and that those are the officers from all three nations.

Yesterday, the Presidency has also adopted the program of marking the Day of Armed Forces of BiH on 1st of December.