"What Bosnia-Herzegovina is doing is not European and responsible. We have an agreement on CEFTA (Central European Free Trade Agreement) in effect for a few years already and that agreement must be respected. We will do everything in order to ensure that that non-European and unfair decision be revoked," Sanader said in Zagreb on Monday after a conference of Croatian exporters.
Asked by reporters whether Croatia was considering counter-measures, Sanader said that nothing was ruled out and added that there was no need for rush response.
The Croatian prime minister said that his country would like first to hear about reasons for the ban, and added that the relevant Croatian minister was in permanent contact with Bosnia's authorities regarding the matter.
In case that reasons for the ban are in no connection with the normal functioning of the markets in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, they should be removed and we cannot allow some one-sided interests to cause tensions in good bilateral relations between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sanader said.
Representatives of the two countries will meet in Sarajevo on 1 June to try remove obstacles in the trade in food products and agricultural produce, the Bosnian Veterinary Agency told Hina in Sarajevo on Monday.
We have invited representatives of Croatia's relevant bodies for a meeting next Monday and the head of the (Croatian) veterinary agency has accepted the invitation. We are still waiting for the answer from the Croatian Agriculture Ministry on its representatives' attendance," a source from the Bosnian agency told Hin.
The head of the Bosnian Veterinary Agency, Drago Nedic, was not today available for comments on the issue.
Over the weekend, however, he confirmed the blockade in the trade in livestock, poultry, fish and eggs between the two countries explaining that Bosnia thus responded to restrictions which Croatia had already imposed in this kind of trade.
"In the last two months Croatia practically stopped the import of fish, poultry, eggs and many other products from Bosnia-Herzegovina, under the pretext that it abides by the European union's regulations on animal health," Nedic told the Bosnian press.
Croatia's Agriculture Ministry said last week that all the measures taken in this regard by Zagreb in recent months were the results of the commitments stemming from Croatia's EU membership candidacy.
Nedic was quoted by the Sarajevo-based Dnevni Avaz daily as saying that this explanation did not stand.
"Croatia is not yet an EU member. We are currently negotiating (the problem) on an equal footing," Nedic said.
The Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration served a note to the Bosnian Embassy on Saturday protesting in the strongest terms against relevant Bosnian bodies' decision to ban the import of fowl and fowl products, livestock and their products, and fish from Croatia.
The ministry stressed that Croatia did not adopt any new ban regarding the protection of human and animal health which would prompt such a decision by relevant Bosnian bodies, a press release said.
The ministry is surprised that the decision was made without announcement or consultations with Croatia, which is the usual practice, and asks that the decision be urgently re-examined and put out of force.
The decision prompted the Croatian Embassy in Sarajevo yesterday to protest to relevant Bosnian bodies, the press release said.