Key documents for the European integration process are still being adopted behind closed doors

The Initiative for Monitoring European Integration in BiH believes that the Council of Ministers has shown complete disrespect for the basic principles of transparency of government work when adopting the Decision on the system of coordination of the European integration process in Bosnia and Herzegovina, reports the Patria News Agency.

- The practice of non-transparent adoption of key documents for the EU integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as we had the opportunity to see during the adoption of the Reform Agenda, has been brought to a complete absurdity by this procedure.

It is an unbelievable fact that the public in Bosnia and Herzegovina learned that the coordination mechanism - one of the key issues in BiH - was adopted only fifteen days after its adoption, and not from the institution that adopted it, but from the media that found this decision in the Official Gazette of BiH. The coordination mechanism was adopted at the session of the BiH Council of Ministers held on January 26, 2016, without the public's knowledge, with no trace of it in the regular reports on sessions that this body publishes, and which the Council of Ministers literally kept secret until today.

Furthermore, even after the session held on January 26, 2016, this institution continued to publish statements by the Chairman of the BiH Council of Ministers, Denis Bećirović, on its official website, which spoke of this mechanism in the future tense, although it had already been adopted at that point. One such statement was made during the visit of the Head of the Western Balkans Unit at the European External Action Service, Eduard Auer (February 8, 2016), when Bećirović literally stated "that the adoption of an effective coordination mechanism based on the constitutional competencies of all levels of government in BiH is expected."

Such behavior by the highest executive body in Bosnia and Herzegovina is incomprehensible, as it not only undermines the already weak trust of citizens in the system's institutions, but also further jeopardizes the credibility of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the EU integration process, at a time when it is preparing to submit an official application for membership in the European Union - the statement reads.