Zijad Bećirović: The Questionnaire is not a historic day for BiH, Europe still shows a stepmotherly attitude

SARAJEVO/LJUBLJANA, (Patria) - The submission of the BiH Questionnaire to the European Commission represents a technical act and I think too much importance is being given to it, believes the director of the International Institute for Middle Eastern and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) from Ljubljana, Dr. Zijad Bećirović.

Bosnian-Herzegovinian authorities today submitted answers to the European Commission's Questionnaire in Sarajevo to the President of that Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, which is one of the prerequisites for the EU to consider candidate status and open accession negotiations for Bosnia and Herzegovina to the European Union. The handing over of the Questionnaire to Brussels was called a historic day for BiH and its citizens.

The director of IFIMES believes that this can only be talked about after the analysis of the answers from the Questionnaire, because Brussels will return poor-quality answers for revision.

Over the last 14 months, 1,083 civil servants from all levels of government in BiH answered the 3,242 questions from the European Commission's Questionnaire.

Bećirović believes that the EU is showing a stepmotherly attitude towards Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“It should have taken that country into membership as a priority, not set high obstacles before it.”

He reminded that Europe has a weak conscience towards BiH, and it showed this especially 30 years ago when there was a war in BiH, and when the EU did nothing to prevent that war, or to make it last as short as possible.

“The speeches given today by Juncker and Hahn are empty phrases that say nothing. The very atmosphere created in the BiH Parliament is such that leaders were present at that gathering, including nationalists, chauvinists, some are even fascists for whom there is no place in EU integrations, let alone in the EU. All in all, it was a combination of a festive and awkward atmosphere,” concludes Bećirović, adding that he does not want to diminish the efforts made recently by the Council of Ministers of BiH and its Chairman Denis Zvizdić to arrive at the answers to that Questionnaire, writes Patria.