Croatian FM visits Sarajevo ahead of EU ministerial meeting on BiH

Croatia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusic announced in Sarajevo on Wednesday further support for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) on its path to EU membership, encouraging its authorities to implement necessary reforms.

"Our common project is the progress of countries in the region, in this case BiH, toward reforms and membership in the European Union," said Pusic who arrived in Sarajevo for her first official visit to the country after its new government was recently formed.

Pusic and the recently appointed Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak spoke about bilateral relations and the implementation of the EU's new approach to Bosnia and Herzegovina through encouragement of economic and social reforms and gradual political and constitutional changes.

Pusic recalled that Croatia was one of the proposers of that new approach aimed at stepping up the process of bringing BiH closer to the EU. The Croatian foreign ministry has been working on organising a working meeting of EU foreign ministers to focus on Bosnia and Herzegovina ahead of a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council. The meeting is expected to be held next week in Luxembourg and so far 20 foreign ministers have confirmed their attendance.

"There has never been such a response and that confirms that there is an assessment that success is possible, which is probably the most important message," Croatia's foreign minister told the press.

Pusic underscored that BiH now had a real opportunity to progress toward EU membership through reforms that were possible.

"In our opinion, some conditions set (earlier) before BiH were such that they were difficult to meet," Pusic said, assessing that next week or in May at the latest, the EU-Bosnia and Herzegovina Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) could be formally "unfrozen" after party leaders in that country in February agreed in writing to implement reforms.

"(The agreement) will be a sort of dress rehearsal," Pusic said explaining the importance of that event for BiH.

Responding to reporters, Pusic said that the internal structure of BiH was an internal matter while a characteristic of the new EU approach was that questions like the internal structure should be left for later and that one should start with issues that could produce results relatively quickly, thus creating conditions for talks on other topics.

Bosnia's Foreign Minister Crnadak said that after excessive prolongation in setting up the new government, it was now necessary to agree on mechanisms to coordinate relations with the EU, because without that, negotiations with Brussels would not be possible. The second priority, according to him, is the fight against corruption.

"I think that those are the messages for us and BiH institutions have to work on them," Crnadak said, thanking Pusic for her role in the new EU approach to BiH.

He described relations between the two countries as good, saying the countries would try to resolve contentious issues through cooperation.

Crnadak added that there "was nothing more logical or smarter" than for BiH to utilise Croatia's experience on its path to EU membership.

He added that BiH can no longer expect preferential or more lenient treatment from the EU in any area, including the need to adjust a temporary trade agreement with the EU so that it could apply to Croatia too.

Pusic recalled that the option of free export that the EU was now seeking of BiH had also been asked of Croatia with regard to Slovenia.

"BiH has to do that, not as a sign of its weakness but as proof of one of the stages of its European path," Pusic said.

(Hina) sp

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