“The idea to form this group came from European parliamentarians, who in this way wanted to support their BiH counterparts. FYR of Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia have already had the opportunity to be convinced of the usefulness of such groups, and now they BiH will join them, for the first time since it has entered the Stabilization and Association process, said Amer Kapetanovic, the Head of the Department for European Union Cooperation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  

In his speech, the Commisioner Füle stated:

"Straight after the Structured Dialogue this week, we are launching on the 14 and 15 November High-Level Coordination Meetings on the Instrument of Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) for 2012, and multi-beneficiary meetings in order to pre-empt the problems experienced this year, which nearly lost Bosnia and Herzegovina 100 million €. Right afterwards, there will be a meeting to start the Programming exercise for IPA 2012-2013. This experience with the IPA was important lesson and we would like to help you to create a mechanism to avoid such thing to happen in the future.

We are using the experience gathered with the Structured Dialogue to reinforce the already existing subcommittees of Stabilisation and Association Process.

On 15 November, there will be subcommittee meetings on energy and on transport. The day after, the Commission will have meetings with the stakeholders of the TRANSCO electricity company to help solve problems there. That same afternoon, there will be high-level talks on the important transport link Corridor V.c. We are thinking of using the IPA 2012 funds for corridor V.c. design, as building of this corridor will mean not only an investment, but also direct employment. And it is not only DG Enlargement and my portfolio but more and more also other colleagues from the European Commission who are getting involved.

But for all we do, we can only help Bosnia and Herzegovina to help itself. Within the country there needs to be a European Consensus.

• A consensus to work together
• A consensus which goes above entity and party politics,
• A consensus to improve the lives of your citizens and to provide them and their children with a better future.

Political representatives have demonstrated that when there is a will, there is a way. Difficult reforms were agreed upon, which lead to visa free travel in the Schengen area for the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Recently, there have been some positive developments on some requirements: the State Aid Law was adopted by the Council of Ministers. A Joint Interim Committee of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Parliamentary Assembly for implementation of the Sejdic-Finci ruling was established. Bosnia and Herzegovina now needs to build on these developments.

As parliamentarians, it is your task to do that. You have a vital role to play in developing a shared vision for the future of the country, in the work which you carry out inside your parliaments, but also in reaching out to your citizens. It is important to explain the benefits of European integration, and more importantly what needs to be done to deliver on the EU aspirations.

We should use our time here together to take the necessary steps to moving Bosnia and Herzegovina into the European era, Stefan Füle concluded.

Source: fena; Reference:  SPEECH/11/730