BiH travels closer to EU visa liberalisation

15/03/2010

Bosnia and Herzegovina fulfills the last requirements on the road to visa-free travel, set for this summer.

By Jusuf Ramadanovic for Southeast European Times in Sarajevo – 15/03/10

BiH Prime Minister Nikola Spiric met last week with senior EC officials in Brussels. [Getty images]

At a Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Council of Ministers session last week, several officials were elected to important state posts, in an effort to meet the last requirements for EU visa liberalisation, expected in July.

Bosniak Himzo Selimovic was appointed to lead the Directorate for Co-ordination of Police Bodies with the Bosnian Serb Uros Pena and Bosnian Croat Mile Juric serving as his deputies.

At the same session, Vinko Dumancic was appointed director of the BiH Border Police, and Enes Gacanin as his deputy. Marko Dominkovic was named deputy director of the State Investigation and Protection Agency.

"With these appointments, the BiH Council of Ministers has met the last requirement of the visa regime liberalisation road map," said the BiH Council of Ministers Chairman and Prime Minister Nikola Spiric.

On Wednesday (March 10th), after the landmark government session, Spiric visited Brussels to lobby for visa liberalisation with senior European Commission (EC) officials, most notably EU Commissioner for Enlargement Stephan Fuele, and EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstrom.

Spiric said he asked her "to use her personal and official authority so we win the race with time … I am convinced that [the EC progress report due in April] would contain such arguments that she can use to show her counterparts from the 27 member countries that BiH has met all the road map requirements".

BiH now awaits a visit from the EC Monitoring Mission later this month, ahead of the progress report Spiric mentioned.

There may be hitches however, such as complaints from Belgium and other EU countries about a recent influx of asylum seekers -- mostly Albanians, from Serbia and Macedonia -- where visas were liberalised in December.

"If the visa cancellation for BiH citizens becomes a political [issue] instead of technical, it is possible that the decision is postponed for the post-election period," said Samir Rizvo, head of the BiH interdisciplinary working group for liberalisation of the EU visa regime. Rizvo made his comments in the Banja Luka daily Nezavisne Novine. "This would mean that the country's citizens could receive non-visa travel only after October."

But German Member of Parliament Franziska Brantner told Deutche Welle that she doubts the European Parliament will stand in the way.

"I can not see anyone in the EP, save maybe the most extreme deputies, who would penalise BiH because of what is happening with the Albanians," said Brantner. "I cannot say the same for the governments of the member countries, where there may be a risk of the issue."