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Umihana Krličević – Omerović, TešanjI believe that the institutions and citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina do not yet possess the necessary awareness and skills to make full and proper use of EU financial assistance. Although local government staff have received occasional training in this regard, it is still not sufficient. Creating units for the proper control of the allocation of EU funds as well as enhanced training could lead to better use of this money. I hope that the recently elected officials will recognize the BiH Progress Report as a warning signal and act accordingly. If they do, this will result in significant increases in the number and quality of applications / projects for EU funding. |
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Dijana Kunić, SarajevoI doubt it. The election has not resolved anything. We were presented with the same political options as before, and by and large, the elections have returned almost the same people with the same ideas. We can only expect more of the same, which means the continued fight for power and positions with little regard paid to putting BiH on the road to EU membership. Moreover, it is my impression that many politicians shy away from integration because they fear greater scrutiny of their actions. EU membership would mean a higher degree of implementation of the rule of law. Since joining the EU, Croatia has seen arrests of many high-ranking officials for corruption. Corruption in Bosnia is rife as we can read in international observer reports and analyses. It is no secret that there is corruption in BiH. For this reason, local politicians have no motivation to speed up the process of EU integration. Rather, they can bide their time, using the complicated constitution of the country as a cover, and wait for special concessions from the EU. And once they obtain such concessions, they’ll take credit for it, too. This is made worse by the fact that we still do not have a sufficiently strong civil society to perform a watchdog function in our country, particularly when it comes to our politics and politicians. |
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Iris Hadžiosmanović, JajceThe former government definitely failed in terms of EU integration. I hope that the new government will change the situation and that it will overcome the key obstacles and BiH will finally break the stalemate and move forward along the path to EU membership. I sincerely hope that this will not be long in coming. I hope things will change for the better and quickly. I am an optimist and I feel sure that the next Progress Report will be quite favourable. |
