Čović announces new meeting of five leaders in Sarajevo: Do we have the courage to finish everything or will we wait for someone to impose something?

(Patria) - A meeting of five leaders will be held tomorrow in the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina to reach an agreement on laws that need to be adopted, which would enable BiH to meet the conditions to receive accession negotiations with the EU at the session of the European Council on March 21. This will be the first meeting of the five leaders since the meeting on January 18 in Laktaši at the estate of Milorad Dodik.

This meeting was announced by the president of HDZ BiH, Dragan Čović, but although European officials who have been and are still in BiH today highlighted three to four laws and the agreement with Frontex, Čović's agenda includes completely different laws.

"Tomorrow we have a meeting in Sarajevo where we will put everything on the agenda. We must decide whether we have determination and courage or whether we will wait for someone to impose something. Let's finish everything we promised the President of the European Commission and the two prime ministers. Everything is written down, both the laws and the decisions we need to make," he said.

He pointed out that these are the Law on Conflict of Interest, the status of foreign judges in the Constitutional Court of BiH, the Law on Courts, and the Election Law.

"Partners must be aware of the agreements we made and signed. We said we have a 6-month deadline for the Election Law. And we will not give anyone the satisfaction of saying that we are blocking something. It is one thing what we would do, and another what our partners do, negotiating a bit with us, then with others, and changing their stance. I said we have everything recorded, and let's not now analyze who said what. But we will not further desecrate that," he added.

He also told partners that they must abandon policies of outsmarting, inconsistency in their work, and changing positions on what we precisely agreed upon.

"Tomorrow we will have a meeting, and tomorrow we can solve everything. This time, the usual games of political marketing for the needs of the body they are addressing must stop in the next 20 days, and I call on all opposition leaders to understand that this is a time that will not come again and to make key decisions. A clear message to partners - let's not seek an alibi policy for those who make decisions on our behalf. Our EU path cannot correspond with imposed decisions," he added.

European official Angelina Eichhorst, who is visiting BiH, said that BiH needs to adopt three laws: the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorist Activities, the Law on Courts, and the Law on Conflict of Interest, and to sign the agreement with Frontex.

However, Čović did not even mention the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering, whose urgent procedure was rejected in the House of Peoples by the votes of SNSD delegates.