On 19 April representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) institutions and the European Commission held the 4th meeting of the Interim Sub-Committee on economic and fiscal issues, part I on statistics.
The meeting took place on the day following the conclusion of the Memorandum of Understanding on the International Monitoring Operation for the census between Bosnia and Herzegovina, the European Commission and the Council of Europe. The Sub-committee immediately took up the necessary technical discussions in view of the agreement in order to allow for the International Monitoring Operation to include all relevant stages of the census as from its preparation.
Both parties discussed the various steps of the practical implementation of the census law by the BiH Statistical Agency and the Entities’ statistical offices and other technical authorities and institutions in charge. The Commission welcomed the good cooperation of the statistical offices and the effective coordination of the tasks assigned to them according to the census law. The Commission took note that certain cartographic tasks are still under preparation.
The Commission welcomed the adoption by the Council of Ministers of the draft State Budget Law 2012 that foresees KM 4.4 million for the census operations. The Commission however strongly recommended that an agreement on the financial plan of the year 2012 is adopted or that the Fiscal Council reaches such an agreement. This task is overdue since the deadline included in the census law has expired.
The Commission informed about the structure and the programme of activities planned for the International Monitoring Operation carried out with international experts amongst others from the Commission and the United Nations.
The Commission welcomed progress in the approximation of the legislation in BiH to the EU statistical law in general.
The Commission reminded BiH of the deadline of 1 July 2013, by which statistical data on the GDP per capita at the so-called NUTS II level shall be submitted to the Commission for the technical preparation of regional structural funds by the EU for BiH after 2013. The Commission will consider technical assistance.