Eurasia Press & News
The Peace Implementation Council (PIC) Steering Board is dissatisfied with BiH’s failure to meet conditions needed to turn the Office of the High Representative (OHR) into a EU Special Representative (EUSR) office. This news came Thursday from High Representative Valentin Inzko. After a two-day meeting of in Sarajevo, the Steering Board called for agreements on issues related to state and military property and the electricity supply for Brcko District, warning that upcoming general elections in October are no excuse for failing to meet the obligations. Inzko stressed that while constitutional reform is not a condition for closing the OHR, it would make state institutions more functional and speed up the country’s Euro-Atlantic integration processes.
In other news Thursday, the upper house of the Federation of BiH parliament approved amendments to the law on war veterans, a key condition for releasing the next tranche of a 1.2 billion-euro stand-by arrangement with the IMF, and additional funding from the World Bank and the European Commission. The lawmakers also backed a law on public sector salaries. The lower house passed the measures Wednesday.
