The European Commission has in the report on progress of BiH in 2008, presented today in Sarajevo, graded the evidenced progress in the public administration reform, which is one of the key priorities of the European Partnership.
The Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office, stands among the rest in the report, has made a significant progress in filling the Office. Current number of employed is 35. Monitoring of implementation of the Strategy of the Public Administration Reform and the Action plan 1 has continued, and by September 2008, the implementation has reached 28%.
In the report of the EC, it has been stated that the operative cooperation with the Public Administration Reform Coordinator from the level of the FBiH, the RS and the District of Brčko, has been improved, but it is needed to invest additional efforts. The Coordinator’s Office has strengthened the capacities primarily in the field of coordination of the PAR Fund and coordination of donor activities.
“The PAR Fund has become operational, and the first project proposals have been adopted in a value of a third of currently available funds of the Fund”, says the report.
Despite this progress, the administrative structures are in certain cases continually fragmented, with the doubled and unclear division of competences on horizontal and vertical level. Coordination between the state and entity civil service agencies has been improved, but it has still been waited on harmonization of three laws on civil service.
The European Commission records that the residence of the state institutions still represents the problem because the new building of the Council of Ministers cannot accept all the employees of the state ministries.
„BiH is still in an early phase of the public administration reform which should be quickened. Complexity and burliness of the institutional structure continues to reduce its efficacy. Because of that it is needed to do additional efforts in improving the efficacy, stability and transparency of the state service on all levels“, was stated in report.
Dimitris Kourkoulas, the chief of the Delegation of the European Commission at the press conference has said that BiH has achieved the progress in fulfilling the political criteria during the first half of 2008.
„The State Court has continued with processing the war crimes and judging is being generally in a rational time frame and in accordance with the internationally approved principles. The municipal elections, held in October 2008, have been implemented in accordance with the international standards. However, lack of consensus related to the main characteristics of strengthening the country, constant challenges of the Dayton Peace Agreement and inflammatory rhetoric have in an unbeneficial way impacted the functioning of the institutions and slowed down the reforms, especially from the middle of this year. The governments have not yet shown enough capacity to take on necessary political authorizations and responsibility“, Kourkoulas said.
According to him, the progress has not been recorded when speaking of the Constitutional reform.
„It is important that BiH, as a future member of the EU, speaks one language“, Kourkoulas has said and repeated that without the population census, there in no signing of the Agreement with the EU.
When speaking of the European standards, the progress has been achieved on the filed of customs, taxes, agriculture, transport, visa administration, border coordination, asylum and migration.