Lost 2019, BiH Cannot Join EU Without Rule of Law

SARAJevo, (Patria) - Bosnia and Herzegovina will not get candidate status this year, although numerous BiH politicians have announced it on several occasions. The arrival of an independent EU legal expert Reinhard Priebe, who will, with his team, analyze the monitoring of the entire rule of law system in BiH over an eight-month period, has only confirmed that BiH will stand still on its European path for some time to come.  

After that, Priebe's report and recommendations will be presented and will be the subject of discussion at the meeting of the Subcommittee on Justice, Freedom and Security of the Stabilization and Association Agreement at the end of 2019. For BiH, this year is lost when it comes to the EU. 

Political commentator Ivana Marić, in a statement to the Patria agency, believes that BiH politicians misinterpreted the statement of former High Representative Catherine Ashton that BiH could get candidate status by November 1, 2019.

“She was talking about her departure, meaning she hoped something would change before she left, but not that BiH would get candidate status. I don't know on what basis we would hope for candidate status when we give nothing to the EU, we ignore their conditions, we ignore their warnings and everything else they ask of us,” says Marić.

She points out that BiH sent answers to the European Commission's additional questions, on which there was no agreement.

 “We cannot agree on the factual situation regarding certain issues in BiH. We saw the recent visit of Commissioner Hahn, who warned about Tuzla and the energy block. Parliament ignored it, we did not try to give them more information to explain that it would not ecologically endanger BiH or Europe, but we simply ignored his recommendations. In May, there are elections for the European Parliament, the entire structure will change, the EU is preoccupied with its own problems. It has problems with the United Kingdom and Brexit. They have huge problems they are facing, so they would not be accommodating to BiH, which is behaving irresponsibly towards the EU,” Marić believes. 

Marić views Priebe's arrival and the analysis of BiH's judiciary in the context of two unresolved cases, “Memić” and “Dragičević”. 

“If it is shown in the Memić and Dragičević cases that there are major omissions, then it means that something is not right with the entire judiciary in both the Federation and the RS. If Mr. Priebe proves that, it shows the situation the judiciary is in,” says Marić.

Analyst Adnan Huskić believes that politicians themselves have blocked the path to the EU by creating a complex coordination mechanism system.

“We will not be able to negotiate in this way. The European integration process is not an isolated process from everything else and can become a victim of all other political processes. One thing is that we have stalled and missed all the important deadlines, and now there is Brexit, European elections, we don't know what the composition of the EU will be. There will be no talk of enlargement, or rather, there will be none until it is resolved in which direction the EU is going, and on which there are different views within the Union itself.“  

Huskić believes that too much focus has been placed on candidate status, and recalled that Macedonia stood for years with candidate status and did not get a date to start negotiations due to a dispute with Greece. Huskić believes that the claims of some politicians that BiH is moving forward, that it is making progress, do not correspond to reality.

Commenting on Priebe's arrival and the analysis of the judiciary in BiH that will follow by the end of this year, Huskić states that the rule of law is the neuralgic point in BiH.

“Priebe represents a new approach to this, he will conduct an analysis and assessment of the situation in BiH. I think Priebe's analysis and the conference that will be held at the end of the year will show exactly what has not been said so far: You are not functioning, nothing is being done here, and the judiciary is under political control.“ 

The rule of law has not been placed at the top for no reason, because the EU functions solely because there is a legal system, says Huskić. 

“The EU is a set of agreements, if BiH does not respect the decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH, how will it respect agreements or fulfill its obligations within the EU system?“, concludes Huskić.