SARAJEVO, Feb 3(Hina) - The international community's high representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, has warned that the country is dangerously lagging behind in reform and that this will seriously threaten its ambition to
join the European Union.
SARAJEVO, Feb 3(Hina) - The international community's high
representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, has warned that
the country is dangerously lagging behind in reform and that this will
seriously threaten its ambition to join the European Union.#L#
In an interview with the Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz published on
Tuesday, Ashdown said that at this moment Bosnia-Herzegovina was
"quite clearly on the road to failure".
"The only thing I can say is that the politicians should wake up and
absolutely step up reform activities in order to avoid a disaster,"
the British diplomat said.
Ashdown said he was disappointed with the fact that the ruling parties
had failed to agree on how to implement a few key requirements set by
the European Commission on the basis of which it would decide whether
negotiations on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with
Bosnia-Herzegovina would be initiated in the middle of this year.
A State Defence Minister has not been appointed, the State Information
and Protection Agency has not started working and a law on the State
Intelligence and Security Service has not been adopted to date, and
Ashdown directly blamed these failures on the Bosnian Serb
authorities.
Through constant objections, the Serb side is trying to reduce to the
maximum the role of future security structures at state level.
Ashdown said he was ready to use his powers in order to ensure the
functioning of government bodies, but warned that this would be a very
bad signal to Europe.
(Hina) vm sb