Zvizdic: EU institutions send wrong messages about Bosnia to Brussels

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EU institutions in Bosnia are sending a wrong message to Brussels, as to why Bosnia has not formed its government yet, Bosnia’s prime minister Deniz Zvizdic said after the Berlin Summit organised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanual Macron in the German capital on Monday.

“We haven’t formed the Council of Ministers not because we can't agree on the division of ministries, but because some don’t want to respect the rule of law and don’t want to activate the NATO Membership Action Plan, justifying it with the so-called military neutrality, while arming more than 1,000 auxiliary police officers within the Republika Srpska (RS) entity police,” Zvizdic said adding it is high time everyone in the region and the EU knows about it.

Bosnia wants to go along the EU path, which means accepting the rule of law and acting in line with that principle, the Council of Ministers Chairman said.

He noted the summit participants talked about some other issues vital for Bosnia and the Western Balkans.

“These are the European integration and the Berlin Process which have no alternative,” the prime minister told the press.

He touched upon the region's stability for which he said was deteriorating.

“Some new borders are being drawn again, and there are talks of territory exchange along ethnic lines, but we know from our past that such ideas once resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, huge crimes and genocide. That’s why we’re against the drawing of new borders in the Balkans,” Zvizdic noted.

He concluded that all the Balkan countries have their internationally recognised borders and the inviolability of internationally recognised borders is a fundamental principle of the EU.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron organised a meeting in Berlin, inviting representatives from the Western Balkans countries, as well as from Croatia, Slovenia, and the EU. The main topics were the stability and development of the region.