Nezavisne novine: BiH does not participate with its members in commissions and authorities of the Council of Europe, which are important for the BiH access towards the EU, even though it has obligated itself a several years ago to do so.
Because of the fact that after it has ratified the European Convention against human trafficking, until October 1st, last year, it has not nominated two members in the Expert group against human trafficking (GRETA), BiH will in the next four years remain without members in that European organization.
Since November 2002, nobody represents the interests of BiH in the Committee for prevention from molestation of the Council of Europe, and by today BiH has not proposed any candidate. In the Venice commission, BiH has not nominated any member in the European authority for constitutional issues, and Kasim Sadiković, as joined member since 1996 sits there, unless the permanent representative of our country in this authority gets nominated.
Mandate in the Framework convention for national minorities has expired on May 31st, 2006 to Ahmed Zilić, while nobody was nominated for his position.
The European commission for racism and intolerance does not have members of BiH either. Mandate to a former member, Adila Krešo has expired in February 2008. The Council of Europe has in March the same year sent the request for nomination of new member to BiH. No answer to that has been received from BiH.
The European organization of states against corruption (GRECO) has in February this year published the report, and because of arresting Vjekoslav Vuković, member of GRECO from BiH, neither answer has been received from BiH.
However, there are institutions in which BiH has succeeded to nominate its representatives. After she has been nominated for ombudsman for human rights of BiH in 2008, Jasminka Džumhur has in February been positioned as a contact person with commissioner for human rights of the Council of Europe, two years after the call on BiH to nominate its representatives. Because of the fact that it did not nominate its members in previous years, BiH did not have its representatives at previous two conventions of that authority in Strasbourg 2007 and 2008.
Branimir Mandić, Minister Assistant of Foreign Affairs of BiH, says that in the previous period, by nominating BiH representatives in authorities of the Council of Europe, there was no system of transparency, and that nominated representatives have not fulfilled conditions of this Council, because those representatives must be known experts with a good knowledge of English or French.
"Because of that, we have had incompetent people. BiH governments now want to change the situation and establish a transparent system according to which the stated criterions would be respected, in order for us to have competent and educated experts in those authorities", has been said by Mandić.
Sanel Huskić, chairman of ACIPS, organization of masters and doctors of science, which deals with the European integrations, says that the problem is in the fact that BiH politicians expect from someone to insert them to Europe without wish to do anything by themselves.
"Our obligation is to send someone to sit in those commissions, and we are not even able to do that. It is about our institutions, which are not aware of significance of their functioning for BiH", Huskić has said. As an argument for that, Huskić mentions impossibility of nominating the director of the Directorate for European Integrations as a key authority for the access of our country to the EU.
"Our politicians behave irresponsibly towards their obligations and are also irresponsible towards citizens, who expect from them to do something for them", he has said.
Mladen Ivanić, chairman of PDP and deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, says that it is a shame and very contra-productive that BiH does not use the opportunities which it has by nominating people in those commissions.
"The BiH Delegation in the Council of Europe cannot do anything about it. It is in the competence of state departmental ministries. We still do not have anyone in the Venice commission, which is a real catastrophe", Ivanić has said.