The secret adoption of the Coordination Mechanism is radical example of closed government

Secretly adopted coordination mechanism at the Council of Ministers meeting held on 26 January also took by surprise the non-governmental sector, as well as people who have been following EU integrations for years.

Tijana Cvjeticanin, the member of the Initiative for monitoring the EU integrations of B&H says: 'This is another case of the EU integration related processes being run outside of the public. However, this has been the most radical example so far because nobody knew that the Council of Ministers have even met to discuss the issue and adopt the document. This is particularly relevant now because it concerns the Coordination Mechanism that has presented one of the biggest problems which the public has to be aware of, if not involved in, which has not been the case. That said, whatever is in that document is to be condemned', says Cvjeticanin.

She further added that the document has been adopted, publicly announced in the Official Gazette and therefore effective. Should the Parliament have any suggestions or proposals to change something, that document would have to be terminated and then re-adopted, which would prove unacceptable for a document of such high importance.

The Reform Agenda has been adopted in the same manner; nobody, including parliaments, had any knowledge about it until the moment it was adopted and officially announced. We constantly see the processes in which only representatives of the executive power and their EU counterparts take part, while nobody else has any access to it and nobody is invited to make suggestions. If you look at the Reform Agenda, what have we gained so far? It was created as a document that was supposed to establish the Agreement for Growth and Employment, and which has been eventually created as the document in which people had too many requests that were brought out during demonstrations.

- However, now that all of it has been filtered, we have got something that is not even related to the social problems that brought people to the streets at the time, and now we have Labor Laws at the entity level, both adopted in urgent procedures, without agreement of syndicates. All of that runs in the direction opposite of what is supposed to be at the core of the reform agenda. Generally speaking, it (the agenda) is rather plain and as such it does not include the sectors which should be reformed – says Cvjeticanin.