BOSNIAN PRESIDENCY AGAIN REJECTED STATE BUDGET DRAFT FOR 2008

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (January 24,2008) – The Bosnian Presidency rejected a 2008 draft budget for the Bosnian state institutions for the second time,the President Zeljko Komsic confirmed after the meeting.

This is the Bosnian state budget draft for 2008 which was adopted by the Bosnian Council of Ministers on January 17 in the amount of 1.186.357.560 Bosnian Marks. The Council agreed on this amount after January 10 when the Bosnian Presidency sent back for correction the original budget draft in the amount of 1.191.357.560 Bosnian Marks, asking them to reconsider the remarks of the Bosnian Presidency members.

New budget draft decreased by 5 million Bosnian Marks the Council reached by linear decrease of all material expenses of budget users for 2.7 %.

Bosnian Presidency members Haris Silajdzic and Zeljko Komsic were against this “corrected” budget and member Nebojsa Radmanovic was sustained. Their remarks were the same as those at the previous session of the Bosnian Presidency.

”Council of Ministers partially adopted Radmanovic’s remark and effectively decreased the budget draft that is, decrease in the amount to be taken from the unique Indirect Taxation Direction account by 35 million Bosnian Marks and tried to compensate it with income realized by the Central bank”, stated President Komsic at the press conference after the special session.

Bosnian Presidency member Haris Silajdzic’s remarks were not adopted concerning the assets for the return process, as well as the remark of President Komsic to open the segment of investments in science, culture, technology, development and agriculture within the spending for the Bosnian Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Draft will be again returned to the Council of Ministers, and the Bosnian Presidency this time voted on this.

”Our remarks still stand and now we have to wait to see how will the Bosnian Council of Ministers react”, stated President Komsic.

“Returning the budget to the Bosnian Council of Ministers for a second time is bad news,” said the International Community's High Representative and EU Special Representative in Bosnia Miroslav Lajcak yesterday.

“This can only slow the development of key Bosnian state institutions and will put increased pressure on them to implement a year long programme in what is now realistically nine months at best” Lajcak added.

Warning that a third failure would send a very negative message to the Bosnian public Lajcak urged the Bosnian Council of Ministers and the Bosnian Presidency to coordinate closely on a proposal which would finally get into parliamentary procedure.