Brussels, 31 January 2017 – The Foreign Affairs Committee at the European Parliament adopted at its today’s session the Report on the 2016 Commission Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia and Herzegovina is obliged to meet certain institutional conditions, if it wishes to become a successful candidate for EU membership. Amendments filed by the Croatian representatives of the European People’s Party, Željana Zovko, Dubravka Šuica, Ivana Maletić and Marijana Petir, were finally accepted and included in the final Report as compromise amendments. The Resolution calls for the reform of the Election Law with principles of federalism, decentralisation and legitimate representation of all constituent nations as key pre-conditions which Bosnia and Herzegovina must satisfy on its accession path to the EU.
The amendments express the regret that the citizens of the city of Mostar have not had an opportunity for more than six years to exercise their democratic right to elect their local representatives. The MEPs called for quick implementation of the Constitutional Court ruling on changes and amendments to the Election Law and the Statute of the City of Mostar. They strongly condemned the unacceptable violence during the local elections in Stolac and appealed to the authorities to deal with the situation observing the rule of law. They also called for further actions to be undertaken with the purpose of securing freedom of media, media pluralism and media reporting in all official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As of Željana Zovko: “The fact that the Resolution has been adopted should not be considered anyone’s defeat, but a realistic approach to standing solutions for reconciliation and co-existence of all nations in the European Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is now the most important task to come to a compromise on the new Election Law, which must follow the European principles of federalism and decentralisation and legitimate representation of all constituent nations and of all citizens, so that Bosnia and Herzegovina may become a real European country.“
The adopted Resolution is a huge success of the European People’s Party headed by the rapporteur Cristian Dan Preda.