DELEGATIONS OF EIGHT SOUTHEASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AND EC GATHERED IN BOSNIA AT THE MULTI-BENEFICIARY PROGRAMME COORDINATION MEETING

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (October 9,2008) - Hosted by the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), a two-day coordination meeting gathering participants in the Multi-Beneficiary Programme under the European Commission’s Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA), has commenced in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo today.

Head of Operations of the European Commission Delegation to Bosnia Boris Iarochevitch and Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council Hido Biščević addressed the participants at the opening ceremony. They both emphasized the importance of the meeting and of the Multi-Beneficiary Programme, which might become an important tool for the very essence of the work of the RCC.

Delegations of Bosnia, Albania, Croatia,Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey and European Commission have gathered to discuss and evaluate implementation of the ongoing projects, Programme’s strategy and possibilities for future cooperation.

Iarochevitch underlined how important and useful is to held meetings like this one in order to exchange information among the beneficiaries of the countries and delegations of the region and discuss future regional cooperation and steps forward.

“I think that the timing is very important. As you all know, we are currently engaged in the IPA programming cycle. You have been recently asked to commence to draft programmes and plans for the years 2009-2011, and I think our work today will help us to generate ideas with a regional scope for the future indicative programmes.”- stressed Iarochevitch.

Biščević pointed out that the next year, a year of 2009, would be a crucial year for the countries of the southeastern Europe, and particularly for the Western Balkans countries.He said that these countries, which are at the crossroad now, could experience two possible outcomes – a positive one, where the positive trends can be sustained and accelerated, and a negative one, a scenario of standstill.

“I need to tell you that the countries in the region are eagerly waiting for a strategy to be finalised. The governments in the region are very much preparing to see in what way, how, to what dynamics and to what methodology the Multi-Beneficiary Programme strategy will be translated, in the forthcoming period, into concrete work, concrete projects.” – said Biščević.

The multi-beneficiary programme will complement and add value to the support given by different national programmes. Multi-beneficiary actions consequently focuses on support that requires collaboration among the beneficiaries, such as regional structures, networks of experts or civil servants or to tackle needs or problems of a cross-border nature.

Purpose of support under the IPA programme is to help candidate and potential candidate countries (the Beneficiaries) to progress towards fully meeting the Copenhagen political and economic criteria as well as adopting and implementing EU acquis.

Besides the country-specific financial assistance, a multi-beneficiary programme supports joint projects by several partners, in areas such as economic and social development, exchange of students and academic staff, supporting civil society, administrative and judicial reform, fight against organised crime and corruption and disaster risk reduction.

For 2008-2010, the overall indicative amount of EU financial assistance under the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) is 4.471 billion Euros.
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THE FIRST MEETING OF THE EC – BOSNIA INTERIM COMMITTEE HELD IN SARAJEVO

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (October 9,2008) - The first meeting of the EC-Bosnia Interim Committee was held on 7 October 2008 in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. This body was established under the Interim Agreement which entered into force on 1 July 2008 and which allows for comprehensive trade liberalisation between the European Union and Bosnia.

This is an important step forward in the Stabilisation and Association Process of the country. At its first constitutive meeting the Interim Committee approved its internal rules of procedure and set up a number of sub-committees to assist it in monitoring the implementation of the Agreement.

The meeting offered an opportunity for the Parties to have a fruitful discussion on current and future priorities, including on free movement of goods, customs and taxation, competition, intellectual and industrial property and transit traffic. Bosnia's WTO accession negotiations and the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) implementation were also discussed.

While most of the industrial, agricultural and fishery products from Bosnia have been given duty and quota free access to the European internal market, Bosnia is granted the right to progressively reduce such duties over five years on goods of EU-origin.

"This will enable larger inflow of foreign investment in Bosnia”, stated Pierre Mirrel, Director of the Commission's Directorate General for Enlargement.

The Commission welcomed the adoption of an Action Plan for the implementation of the Agreement by the Bosnian government and encouraged the country to enhance preparations for full implementation of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union.

In this framework, it also encouraged Bosnia to ensure full compliance with the European Convention for Human Rights, full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and early preparations for a census in 2011.

The Bosnian delegation to the meeting was led by the Director of the Bosnian Directorate for European Integration, Osman Topcagic.
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BOSNIA MEETS TWO THIRDS OF PRIORITIES SET BY EUROPEAN COMMISSION

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (September 9,2008) - Two thirds of the total 30 priorities that Bosnia needs to meet by the end of September, in order to receive a positive progress report from the European Commission (EC), have been fulfilled so far, chairman of the Bosnian State Parliamentary Commission for European Integration, Halid Genjac, announced yesterday.

The members of this commission met yesterday with representatives of the Bosnian Directorate for European Integrations, to revise the work done so far on meeting the priorities. Their conclusion was that no progress has been made on the issues of a census and election legislation. The latter is connected to constitutional reform, Genjac said.

There are problems in meeting anther five or six priorities (the bills have been drafted, but they are not likely to be adopted by the end of this month).
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BOSNIA LEADS ON FORBES' LIST OF FASTEST CHANGING MARKETS IN THE WORLD

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 24,2008) - In a research done by American Social Technologies for the Forbes magazine, Bosnia tops the list of the world’s fastest-changing markets with 100 points.

The parameters that were analyzed include urban development, literacy, civil liberties, GDP per capital and access to telephone, internet and TV. In the research, the current situation was compared with periods ten and 15 years ago.

The data required were submitted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Freedom House and the World Resources Institute.
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BOSNIAN TAX AUTHORITY MANAGING BOARD TO AMEND CURRENT CUSTOMS TARIFFS

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (February 27,2008) – It seems that after several years of pleading and unsuccessful lobbying with tax regulators, the Bosnian business community will finally see some developments in this area.

Following a proposal by the Bosnian Council of Ministers, the Bosnian Tax Authority Managing Board has decided that that it would have its final say on amendments to the Customs Tariff Act and the Excise Act in the next ten days.

The Board agrees that the current customs tariffs do not meet the needs of the Bosnian economy, both from the aspect of protecting local producers and liberalization of raw material imports.
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