Nezavisne novine: The Council of Ministers of BiH has obligated departmental ministries to prepare in next ten days agreed proposal laws on border control, control of arming and military equipment, weapons and transport of dangerous substances. Adoption of these laws is a condition for abolishment of visa regime for BiH citizens.
"We have obligated departmental ministries to organize in next ten days ministerial conferences, at which the entities will harmonize these proposal laws. I have talked to the entity prime ministers and I think we will succeed to agree these laws, which we will then send to the Parliament by an urgent procedure", has been said yesterday by Nikola Špirić, chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH.
The High Representative of the International Community for BiH, Valentin Inzko has repeated yesterday that the EC will not conclude the agreement on liberalization of visa regime with BiH unless the stated conditions do not get fulfilled. Inzko has pointed out that it is predictable that the abolishment of visas will be approved for the citizens of Serbia and Macedonia.
"I am not an optimist when thinking of the possibility for BiH to have a liberalized visa regime. If some laws get adopted by the urgent procedure, then BiH would be able to catch that train. That is possible and that way BiH would at the same time with Serbia and Macedonia get a non-visa regime", has been said by Inzko at debate under the title "Liberalization of visa regime and youth", which has been organized in Doboj by a non-governmental organization "Europlus".
Proposals of these laws have been adopted by the Council of Ministers several months ago. The Parliament did not accept them, but on Wednesday it has obligated itself that it will elect the agreed proposals without discussion. Delegates have obligated themselves for the adoption of these laws, right after Dimitris Kourkoulas, chief of the European Commission Delegation in BiH, has warned that it is necessary to adopt them if BiH wants to enter the list of countries which have a non-visa regime.
"The Parliament has requested from us agreeing of these laws. We have adopted some of them unanimously and some by majority of votes. In some cases we have had commissions, which have been working over a year, so at the end they would say that it is about the transfer of competencies and that the law is not possible to adopt. That is dishonesty, because if it is about the impossibility of adopting the law due to the transfer of competencies, then it should be said right at the beginning, but not to lose our time ", Špirić has pointed out.
In his letter, which has been sent several weeks ago to the members of the Presidency, the Parliament and the Council of Ministers of BiH, chief of the EC Delegation in BiH has requested, besides these four, the adoption of laws on international legal assistance in criminal subjects, avoiding discrimination, as well as the nomination of the officials of seven police agencies established by the set of laws on police reform. Those are the conditions for a positive report of the EC on fulfilling of conditions for abolishment of visas for BiH citizens, who travel to the EU.
"The nomination of officials of these police agencies is a competence of the Parliament. We have done our part", Špirić has said.
Šefik Džaferović, SDA delegate, on whose initiative the Parliament has on Wednesday dictated the Council of Ministers of BiH adopting of these laws, believes that the Parliament will be able to adopt these laws by the end of May.
"Goal of the Parliament’s decision is that the Council of Ministers, together with us, does everything that has been left to do, in order to fulfill the conditions for abolishment of visas. An urgent action is what we need and we will try to do it", Džaferović has said.