FBiH Government: Information on Technical Finalization of Responses to the EC Questionnaire Adopted

The Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted at today's emergency session in Sarajevo the information on the technical finalization of responses to the European Commission Questionnaire, and gave consent to the "Responses of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the European Commission Questionnaire for the preparation of the Opinion on BiH's application for membership in the European Union".

The Office of the FBiH Government for European Integration will submit these conclusions to federal bodies and institutions for information, as well as to the Commission for European Integration of the House of Representatives and the House of Peoples of the FBiH Parliament. The conclusion will also be forwarded to the Directorate for European Integration of BiH for further action.

After the Questionnaire was handed over to BiH, the administrative bodies of the FBiH adhered to the set deadlines and submitted responses to the Directorate for European Integration (ISEI), after which the phase of work of the working groups for European integration began.

The working groups actively worked on the technical finalization of the responses. The agreed responses were submitted by the chairs of the working groups, with the consent of both their deputies, in material and electronic form to the Commission for European Integration (KEI), which then forwarded them to the coordinators of the European integration process in Bosnia and Herzegovina for confirmation.

Disputed responses were also submitted by the chairs, with the consent of both deputies, to the KEI. The request for their harmonization also contained proposals for possible models. The Commission resolved a number of disputed issues, and those for which it failed to reach a consensus were forwarded to the Collegium for European Integration. The Collegium, at a session held in Sarajevo on December 20, 2017, reached an agreement on all disputed issues.

A total of 1,083 civil servants from all levels of government in BiH worked in 35 working groups on the preparation of BiH's responses to the questions from the European Commission Questionnaire. In addition, 15 members of the KEI and 20 members of the Collegium for European Integration were involved in the work.

A total of 20,037 pages of responses were prepared (12,082 pages of responses and 7,955 pages of annexes). A total of 1,151 acts (laws, by-laws, etc.) referred to in the responses were also submitted. The translation of all BiH responses and accompanying annexes into English was completed on January 15, 2018, except for the responses from Chapter 22, whose translation was completed on February 2, 2018.

BiH's responses to all questions, as well as accompanying annexes and acts for all chapters in the languages in official use in BiH, were harmonized within the coordination system.

The Federal Government today gave consent to the Proposal for a Collective Agreement for officials of administrative bodies and the judiciary in the FBiH, which was established by the negotiating teams of the FBiH Government and the Union of Civil Servants and Employees in state bodies, the judiciary, and public institutions in the FBiH.

The Collective Agreement regulates the rights and obligations of civil servants and employees arising from work and based on work, to which regulations on labor relations, salaries, and other compensations of civil servants and employees in federal state bodies and federal administrative organizations, cantonal administrative bodies, administrative organizations and other cantonal institutions, and city and municipal administrative services on the territory of the Federation of BiH apply.

Consent was also given to the Proposal for an Agreement on the amount of the base for calculating the salary of civil servants and employees in state bodies of the FBiH, which was established by the same negotiating teams. It was agreed that the base for calculating the salary for 2018 amounts to 315 KM, and the point value is 1.00.