MEP Tonino Picula congratulated the rapporteur for BiH Cristian Dan Preda for excellent cooperation on this Resolution and said how this is the opportunity to ask the question what is today's reality of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"Only more complex than the ideas of how to develop relations in a country that suffered the most in the 1990s wars on the territory of former Yugoslavia, is the current situation in BiH. Regardless of the illegal referendum in the RS, BIH has a lot socio-economic and security challenges to deal with. Unlike other countries of the Western Balkans, reasons for blockades and crisis, are mostly internal-political in BiH", emphasized Picula in his speech.
If BiH was a different country, her obligations on the European path may be divided into easier and more difficult, short and long term. "However, BiH has a complex political system in which the decisions are not made in an easy and simple way and every shift in the direction of the European transformation affects the Dayton Treaty".
He added that we should welcome every solution that comes a result of an internal consensus, and not an external imposition. "What we need to be especially sensitive about is a constitutional equality and equality of all constituent peoples and citizens in BiH, and the equitable representation should be provided for other communities too", said Picula.
We would like to remind you that the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament adopted all Picula's amendments at the end of January. He calls for political and electoral reforms in order to tranfsorm BiH into a more functional state; calls for respect for the principle earlier resolutions of the European Parliament ask, such as federalism and decentralisation; he expressed regret that rules of procedure of the Stabilisation and Association Committee still aren't adopted and also for the lack of progress in solving the problems of environmental pollution by the refinery in Bosanski Brod; stresses the importance of the implementation of the Sejdić-Finci judgment and calls for carrying out the statutory obligations of broadcasting programmes in all official languages.
The European Parliament will vote tomorrow on the draft Resolution.