As you know, the Peace Implementation Council Political Directors are meeting
today and tomorrow in
Brussels
,
under the chairmanship of the High Representative and EU Special Representative,
Christian Schwarz-Schilling.
Unusually, the
Bosnia and Herzegovina
participants, led by Prime Minister
Adnan Terzic, will consist not just of government officials but also of
representatives of the political parties in the BiH Parliamentary Assembly.
This is the last meeting of
PIC
directors ahead of their meeting in February when the
PIC
decision to close the OHR in June 2007.
Each of the party representatives will be invited to make a short
presentation to the
PIC
the normal format of the meeting reflects the strategic juncture which BiH has
reached on its path towards Euro-Atlantic integration. More than two months
after the General Election, and less than three months before the
PIC
close the OHR, governments at the State and Federation level have not yet been
formed and key reforms that must be enacted before an
SAA
next steps forward in its post-war recovery, have been put on hold.
This blockage in the reform process is unsustainable. It is damaging the
country’s prospects for stability and prosperity in the near time and it must be
resolved in the coming days – not months. Meeting with the
PIC provides party leaders with the
opportunity to make progress on coalition formation and the reform and the
broader Stabilisation and Association reform agenda.
Political directors will make it clear to the party representatives that the
international environment in which BiH operates is not static – conditionality
gets tougher the longer BiH dithers over key reforms.
The Political Directors will also make clear that the International Community
stands ready to work productively with all those parties that are resolved to
complete the final stage of the
SAA
and unblock the reform agenda.
Among issues that will be under discussion today and tomorrow are the urgent
need to establish a BiH Fiscal Council and make the budgetary structure at every
level of government consistent with available financial resources, and the need
to complete police reform and reactivate the constitutional reform process that
came so close to success in the spring of this year.
In addition to the usual communiqué, which will be issued at the end of the
session tomorrow, there two media opportunities tomorrow.
The HR-EUSR will address media representatives together with Prime Minister
Adnan Terzic after the
PIC
party leaders at 13.00 on Thursday 7 December at the
Justus
Lipsius
Building
room.
The HR-EUSR will then give a press conference immediately after the
PIC
7 December at the
Justus
Lipsius
Building
room.