OHR

High Representative to Lobby for BiH with
UK
Presidency 

The High Representative, Paddy Ashdown,  will be in

Brussels

and

London

tomorrow. In

Brussels

he will
attend a meeting  in his role as the EU’s Special
Representative chaired by the EU’s High Representative of a Common Foreign
and Securty Policy Javier Solana. The meeting will also be attended by all the
acting EUSRs (there are 7). Discussion will focus on the future of the EU’s
foreign policy.

This meeting will take place after the PIC announced last week that the
sooner BiH starts the SAA process, the sooner the PIC will be in a position to
launch the process of phasing out the OHR and move to an Office of an EUSR.

In the Balkans, the meeting will discuss the EU’s policy in the light
of  the region’s ambition to begin EU accession. The EU’s substantial
economic, military and political engagement in the region and in particular BiH
shows the EU’s commitment. However participants at the meeting will also note
that BiH must prove that it is also committed to starting the EU accession
process by undertaking the necessary reforms. They will note the political
statements must be backed up by results. Until the necessary reforms are
undertaken, BiH’s progress towards the EU will be stalled.

Later in the afternoon the High Representative will
travel to London, where he will meet
British Foreign Minister Jack Straw. The topic of this meeting
will  also be the current status
of BiH’s  progress towards Euro-Atlantic integration. As you
know, the UK is
about to take over the six-month Presidency of the EU. In his talks with the
Foreign Secretary the High Representative will lay out the political and
parliamentary scenarios whereby BiH can still make the most of its
remaining chance to cross the threshold to SAA negotiations in time for the
tenth anniversary of
Dayton. 

BiH Farmers Are Right to Demand Coordinated Agricultural
Policy

OHR regrets that BiH farmers have been placed in a position where they feel
the need to protest against the implementation of Free Trade Agreements. The
essence of the problem of agricultural imports isn’t the FTAs themselves – it is
the failure by the BiH authorities, at the State and Entity level, to organize,
administer and support the agriculture sector in a competent and optimal
way.

OHR supports the farmers’ call for a properly coordinated BiH agricultural
policy. In this regard the OHR urges the State and Entity authorities to convene
an agricultural Working Group without delay so as to implement the
recommendations made in the European Union’s Sectoral Review of BiH agriculture.

BiH farmers are protesting because the authorities have failed to set in
place the sort of coordinated agricultural policy that is the norm in every
other country in Europe. When this coordinated policy is formulated and
implemented, BiH farmers and consumers can start to benefit from the Free Trade
Agreements negotiated by the BiH CoM.

SDHR in Mostar 

Senior Deputy High Representative Martin Ney will make his first visit to
Mostar on Thursday. During his visit Ambassador Ney will meet City and
cantonal officials, including Mayor Ljubo Beslic and President of the City
Assembly Murat Coric. After the meeting with the Mayor and Assembly
President there will be a doorstepper at the City Administration building
at 12.45. More details will be provided by the City Administration Press Office.
At the conclusion of this visit SDHR Ney will meet Cantonal Prime Minister
Miroslav Coric.

During this initial visit Ambassador Ney will be briefed on the
progress that has been made in implementing the new Mostar Statute and the
achievements till now in dismantling parallel
structures and turning Mostar into a normal European city.

PDHR, Unions, Employers, Bulldozer to Discuss Ways of Improving BiH
Policymaking

Principal Deputy High Representative Larry Butler, will join trade union and
business representatives at a roundtable today at the Trade Union headquarters
in

Sarajevo

to explore ways of
expanding the role of workers, entrepreneurs and employers in BiH policymaking.
There will be a short media opportunity at the conclusion of the roundtable,
from 14.14 to 14.30.

House of Peoples Can Deliver Major Benefits to Citizens

Tomorrow the BiH House of Peoples is scheduledto hold the
final reading of the Framework Law on Debt, the Railways Law and the PBS System
Law.

Each of these laws – when enacted – will bring tangible benefits to the
people of Bosnia and
Herzegovina.

The PBS Law will establish a modern, affordable and unified broadcasting
system for the whole country – one that reflects the cultural, linguistic and
religious diversity of all of BiH’s constituent peoples. And it is, as you know,
one of the two principal remaining requirements of the European Commission’s
Feasibility Study. Pass this law and the House of Peoples will remove one of the
last obstacles on the road to Europe.

The Debt Framework Law will create the conditions for setting up a
functioning bond market. This will provide the governments in BiH with a
mechanism – used by governments in all developed economies – to raise money by
issuing bonds. The law is part of a comprehensive debt settlement that will
allocate compensation to creditors of the governments while ensuring that
government liabilities are manageable. This will remove what has been until now
a disastrous deterrent to inward investment. By removing this deterrent it will
help clear the way for more job creation.

The Law on Railways is part of a larger process of transforming the railway
sector in BiH and opening it up to foreignand domestic investment. The fact
of the matter is that the economy can only grow so far with the railway system
in its present state of disrepair. Companies might produce more widgets, but
they can’t get their widgets to market unless there is rolling stock available
to transport the widgets. So, this is not just about railways – it’s about the
whole economy.

So, if the House of Peoples can conduct its business with efficiency and
common sense, it will deliver huge benefits to the people. If it can’t, the
whole country will be held back.

ICMP

Good morning from the International Commission on Missing Persons. I have two
items for you today.

Firstly, as we approach the tenth anniversary of the 1995 fall of Srebrenica,
I would like to bring you up to date on the latest figures of identifications of
Srebrenica victims. The total number of Srebrenica victims identified by the
International Commission on Missing Persons to date is now 2070. That figure
includes more than five hundred victims who will be buried at the Potocari
memorial on July 11^th this year.

In fact, this morning, ICMP forensic pathologist Dr. Rifat Kesetovic
completed identification of the 570^th Srebrenica victim who will be
buried during the memorial ceremony. Last week, we said we believed that
approximately 550 bodies would be buried; as you can see, we have been working
hard to identify as many victims as possible, and we have already surpassed that
figure.

However, we are not sure at the moment exactly how long it will take for all
the identified bodies to be prepared for burial, so at this stage, I am not
going to try to give a more precise estimate of the actual number of victims
that will be buried during the ceremony. So far, 350 bodies have been moved from
ICMP’s Podrinje Identification Project in

Tuzla

to the Visoko company that
will prepare them for burial. Next week the remaining bodies will also be
transferred to Visoko.

And on a different note, the International Commission on Missing Persons has
sent a further two experts to Phuket in
Thailand

to
assist with the identification efforts of tsunami victims. ICMP DNA scientist
Rijad Konjhodzic, who is normally based at ICMP headquarters in
Sarajevo

, and DNA matching software
expert Zlatan Bajunovic, who works at the ICMP Identification Coordination
Department in Tuzla

, left yesterday
for Thailand

.

At the ICMP laboratory in

Sarajevo
, ICMP is currently
obtaining DNA profiles from bone samples of tsunami victims sent from

Thailand
and is
matching them to DNA reference samples, also sent from

Thailand
. Riyad
and Zlatan will do the final review of those matching reports in

Thailand
before
handing them over to the Thai authorities.

And as a final note, I would just like to underline that the resources ICMP
is investing in the identification of tsunami victims is in no way affecting the
identification of the missing from the former

Yugoslavia

. As
you can see from the number of Srebrenica victims we have identified recently,
our commitment to this region is not wavering. Furthermore, the Government of
Thailand is funding the work on tsunami victim identification. Donations from
Governments for this region are being used exclusively for this region.

OSCE

No statement.

EUPM

No statement.

EUFOR

No statement.

NATO

No statement.