There are problems and questions, but no political will: Joint session of the BiH Parliament and Council of Ministers will not even be held

By Amra Vrabac

Who remembers February 5th of this year? A joint session of both houses of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly and the BiH Council of Ministers was supposed to be held then, since the new Council of Ministers of BiH was appointed in January 2023.

The quorum for that session was broken by delegates of SNSD from the House of Peoples of the BiH PA, and the SNSD Club in the House of Representatives of the BiH PA also did not attend the session.

SNSD then stated as a reason that the conditions for work were not met because there was no member from the Serb people in the Collegium of the House of Representatives of the BiH PA, as Nebojša Radmanović was dismissed.

Even after a half-hour break, nothing changed, so the session was not held. And the continuation of this session has never been scheduled.

As many as 37 delegate and representative questions arrived for that session, which remained unanswered. Some are still relevant at this moment.

Delegate Šefik Džaferović asked the Council of Ministers of BiH what it is undertaking to respect the Constitutional and legal principles of ethnic representation of employees in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today, we are witnessing a catastrophic situation in most state institutions where Bosniaks are in a significantly smaller number than they are entitled to according to the 2013 Census. An urgent session was held on this topic in July, which ended without concrete conclusions.

Delegate Safet Softić requested clarification from the Minister of Justice of BiH regarding the Law on Courts, and representative Jasmin Emrić was interested in who chose the projects to be included in the Growth Plan.

The Growth Plan has not been adopted to date, due to which BiH has already lost part of the tranche, and another warning threatens us. Also, the Law on Courts has not been adopted, and representatives and delegates would certainly have a number of other questions for the Council of Ministers of BiH, which is working with difficulty and in a reduced composition without a Minister of Security since the dismissal of Nenad Nešić in January. That duty is performed by Deputy Minister Ivica Bošnjak, thereby increasing the number of votes for HDZ in the Council of Ministers.

Numerous appointments are pending, there are no new laws, the Budget of BiH institutions for 2025 has not been adopted, and the European path is getting further away.

Due to the damaged relations within the coalition, this session will probably not be continued until the end of the mandate, and already at the beginning of next year, all political subjects will turn to election activities due to the October General Elections. Parliamentary work will be reduced to a minimum or possibly if some laws need to be adopted under an urgent procedure.

More than two and a half years of the mandate have passed in mutual calculations, dismissals, blockades, and it is certain that such a situation will remain until the elections.