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Bosnia Herzegovina. Recommendation to the Council

2006/2290(INI)

In a proposal for a recommendation (tabled pursuant to Rule 114(1) of the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure) by Doris PACK (EPP-DE) on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, a series of recommendations to the Council concerning Bosnia and Herzegovina are made.

In its first part, the proposal for a recommendation returns to the agreement reached by the constituent entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 2006 to restructure the police forces and recalls that the representatives of the two entities had agreed that the proposed police force reform would envisage the transfer to state level of all budgetary competencies, the elimination of all political interference in the operation of such forces and the delimitation of territorial units along purely functional lines.

The proposal for a recommendation recalls that the agreement foresaw the setting up of a directorate for the implementation of police force restructuring, with representatives from all levels of authority (state, entity and cantons), whose task would be to submit a proposal for the implementation of the reform, including the demarcation of the new territorial units in 30 September 2006. However, the directorate failed to respect this deadline given that the representatives of the Republika Srpska refused to cooperate further on this issue.

The proposal for a recommendation also recalls that the representatives of the Republika Srpska called for an independence referendum, should the negotiations on the future status of Kosovo result in a legal and territorial separation from Serbia. This confirms, furthermore, the persistence of strong ethnic divisions within Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In this context, the proposal for a recommendation calls on the Council:

§         through the good offices of the EU Special Representative, to relaunch the talks on much-needed constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina;

  • to exert pressure on the Government of the Republika Srpska to recommit to the work of the directorate for police reform implementation and to remind all parties that police force restructuring is a key prerequisite for the conclusion of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with this country.