Ministers from SBB and HDZ did not support cooperation between BiH and the EU crime fighting agency

Ministers from HDZ BiH and SBB did not give consent to the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina to approve the signing of the agreement between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Police Office (EUROPOL), the Patria news agency learns.
Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina and EUROPOL completed negotiations on the agreement on operational and strategic cooperation as early as last year.

Consent for the signing of this agreement was supposed to be given by the Presidency of BiH several days ago. However, everything came to a halt after the Coordination Mechanism was adopted. A source from the Patria news agency reveals that the Chairman of the Presidency of BiH, Dragan Čović, refused to give consent for the signing of this agreement until consent is first given by all ten cantons in the Federation of BiH.

The Ministry of Security of BiH sent a letter to ten cantonal ministries of interior, requesting their consent for the signing of cooperation between BiH and EUROPOL. The deadline for a response was February 5. Seven cantons responded positively, while three cantonal interior ministers did not respond to this letter.

A source from the Patria agency within the Ministry of Security of BiH reveals that consent for the signing of cooperation between BiH and EUROPOL was not given by the SBB Minister of Interior of the Sarajevo Canton, Ismir Jusko, and the HDZ ministers of interior from the Herzegovina-Neretva and West Herzegovina cantons, Slađan Bevanda and Zdravko Boras.

The Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dragan Mektić, previously confirmed to Patria that the Presidency of BiH refused to give consent for the signing of this agreement without the consent of the cantonal interior ministries.

By signing the agreement between BiH and EUROPOL, our country would have invaluable cooperation with the key EU crime fighting agency.