The Second round of the trilateral dialogue between BiH, Croatia and European Commission was completed in Brussels on 15 February, with encouraging news for BiH – but a clear requirement for action on a number of issues.

After the Trilateral Ministerial meeting, Stefan Fule, Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, said that the Commission had proposed a special transit regime for exports from Bosnia and Herzegovina to the third countries through the Port of Ploce. “Thanks to this special regime, the vast majority of export and import of agricultural products of animal origin will continue as before entry of Croatia to the EU. This regime will be applicable from 1 July 2013 until Bosnia and Herzegovina itself meets the EU standards”, said Fule.

The passage of products will be possible only if they meet the conditions of quality and safety as prescribed by the European Union (EU). Nonetheless, this is intended only as a short-term solution. The latest developments should be a motivation for Bosnia and Herzegovina to continue work on the improvement of controls at border crossings, accelerate harmonisation of local legislation with EU regulations and to improve quality control and food safety. Efficiency and speed in implementing European standards will contribute to placing BiH products back on Croatian shelves, but also to finding their place in the markets of all other EU countries.

It is anticipated that Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia should sign, by the end of May, a Local Border Traffic Agreement on Border Crossing Points, and the Joint Statement on the Neum Ploce agreement.

The issue of crossing the border only with a BiH identification card is one of the issues that participants of the dialogue agreed to work together on. This issue is, in the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina Zlatko Lagumdzija, still open. “BiH will do everything to maintain the privileges that it had with Croatia, after this country enters the European Union on 1 July”, he said. Due to the significance of communication and movement of people between BiH and Croatia, Croatian authorities will submit a request to the Council of the European Union to seek the approval of EU member states for the retention of the existing ID card regime available to BiH and Croatian citizens.

Furthermore, BiH and Croatia have the task to finish, as soon as possible, the works on construction and adaptation of border crossings Bijaca and Gradiska so they would be completely functional on the day of Croatia’s accession to the EU.

The Head of the EU Delegation to BiH, Ambassador Peter Sorensen, visited the construction site of the border crossings Bijaca and the construction site of the subsections Bijace-Kravice on 14 February, where he met with representatives of the Public Enterprise FBiH Autoceste Ltd. Mostar and the representatives of the BiH Indirect Taxation Authority. In order to examine the progress of work on the construction of one of the two border inspection posts, Ambassador Sorensen was accompanied by Czech Ambassador Tomas Szunyog, Swedish Ambassador Bose Hedberg, UK Ambassador Nigel Casey and Deputy French Ambassador Francois Legue. Ambassador Sorensen pointed out that: “There is no time to waste when it comes to the completion of the work on border crossing Bijaca in order for it to be ready for Croatian accession to the EU on 1 July of this year”, while the representatives of FBiH Autoceste and the Indirect Taxation Authority assured the Ambassador that the utmost efforts are being made to complete the work on time.

Within BiH, the authorities and producers need to continue with the process of designing and implementing the control systems for food production in order to be able to export to the EU. In so doing, BiH will meet its own obligations and see an acceleration of its path towards the EU. The EU will continue to provide technical and other support to BiH in order to align its legislation with the EU Acquis in the field of food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary control. Up to now, the EU has committed or implemented some 19 million EUR worth of technical assistance and investments in food control laboratories, and improved border and animal health control. Over the next two years, a further 8.0 million EUR is committed from IPA 2012 for technical assistance and investments in the phytosanitary, animal health and animal by-product (including animal waste) management sectors. In addition, the EU’s TAIEX programme has implemented a series of short-term expert missions to address shortcomings in the food and feed control system, including missions on legislation, inspections and reviews of potential EU-exporting food business establishments. These missions are continuing in the first half of 2013.

Cuts- open issues that disable accreditation of the export of BiH products to the EU:

Changes to legislation in BiH are necessary to establish a system that would allow authorities to quickly and reliably find out for example in the case of a virus being found, where in the agri-food production chain deficiencies have occurred. This is to protect the health of the consumer in both the EU and in BiH. Such a system has been established in all EU Member States and it is required with regard to imports of such goods into the EU.

At the December 2012 meeting between BiH, Croatia and European Commission, the Commission took note of the progress made in the alignment of the legislation in the food-safety, veterinary and phytosanitary area, but encouraged the authorities of BiH to finalise their work.

To achieve concrete progress in the Food and Veterinary sector, the Law on Food and the Veterinary Law now has to be revised. A working group for the revision of the Law has been established and plans to finalise a new draft in the next few months. The completion of this work has to be followed also by the implementation on the entity level, since the primary responsibility for carrying out controls is at the entity level. The implementation process includes the adaption of entity legislation to the State-level Laws and the Hygiene Package as well as the appropriate level of education and training of the competent authorities.

On the basis of the 2011 and 2012 Monitoring Plans of Residue (remains of veterinary medicine) proposed by BiH, the European Commission added honey to the list of products allowed for export to the EU. Export of these products to the EU began in March.

The export of potatoes to EU markets may be expected in early 2014 following BiH submitting its application for approval of exports of this commodity.