Illogicalities of the SAA: For whom is BiH seeking an increase in sugar exports to the EU, which it does not produce!?

Negotiations between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union on the adaptation of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), which began on Tuesday (16 February), are taking place largely in secrecy, writes the Patria agency.

Only what was previously explained by the Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH, Mirko Šarović, is known about the SAA. He stated that the EU is demanding that BiH authorities allow duty-free imports of goods from Croatia into BiH. In addition to Croatia, other EU member states would also export goods to BiH at a zero customs rate. Experts claim this will destroy domestic producers.

Šarović also revealed that BiH will certainly suffer damage after the adaptation of the SAA, but that they will try to mitigate this by seeking counter-concessions from the EU. The Council of Ministers of BiH has drafted an act instructing the domestic negotiating team to demand that the EU allow greater exports of certain goods from Bosnia and Herzegovina. In foreign trade terms, BiH is seeking an increase in quotas for the export of the following goods: fish, sugar, wine, fruit, and vegetables.

More than this cannot be learned about how far the negotiations between BiH and the EU have progressed regarding the adaptation of the SAA. From the cabinet of Hamdo Tinjak, Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH and head of the BiH negotiating team for the SAA adaptation, NAP was told that Tinjak will not give more detailed statements until the negotiation process on the SAA is concluded.

The public cannot even get an explanation as to why BiH is seeking larger quotas for sugar exports to the EU. Experts from the Faculty of Agriculture in Sarajevo explain that Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have a single hectare planted with sugar beet. It would have been much more useful to seek an increase in quotas for the export of goods produced in BiH.

The Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH confirmed to NAP that Bosnia and Herzegovina imported as much as 124,253 tons of sugar in 2015, valued at 76.5 million KM. During the same period, we exported just over 21,000 tons of sugar. Sugar was mostly exported to Macedonia, Croatia, and Kosovo.

Interestingly, the largest importer of sugar into BiH, as well as the largest exporter from BiH, is the company Studen-agrana doo. This company was implicated in one of the biggest sugar scandals in post-war BiH, which was uncovered in 2014 after the arrest of the former director of the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH, Kemal Čaušević.

The company Studen-agrana was granted exemption from customs duties on sugar imports into BiH by the former Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH and current member of the BiH Parliament, Nikola Špirić (SNSD), which over six years damaged the budget of Bosnia and Herzegovina by about 60 million KM.

Čaušević told investigators that, according to his knowledge, Ilija Studen, the owner of Studen-agrana, had adequately repaid Špirić for the favor he did him, allegedly through Špirić's daughter, who lived or was living in Vienna at that time.

Former Deputy Minister of Finance of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Fuad Kasumović, also told Patria that Špirić received two and a half million KM in bribes from the brother of the owner of Studen-agrana, who was at the time the director of the Raiffeisen bank branch in Banja Luka, because he exempted the company Studen-agrana from customs duties on sugar imports into BiH.

The strategy on what BiH will seek from the EU as a counter-concession when opening our country's borders to goods from the EU was established by the Council of Ministers of BiH and confirmed by the Presidency of BiH, writes Patria. (aa)