FBiH Parliament adopts Law on Veterans' Rights

N1

The House of Representatives of the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity Parliament adopted the Law on the Rights of Veterans and their Families after a session that lasted the entire day.

N1’s Aleksandra Tolj reported that the Parliament also adopted a number of amendments that were submitted to further procedure.

The session that lasted the entire day caused a lot of discontent and commotion among several hundred veterans who gathered in front of the Parliament building demanding the publication of a single war veterans’ registry, the abolition of the financing of veterans’ associations, and a veterans’ allowance.

The discontent culminated when the FBiH Government adopted nine technical amendments of the total of 38 proposed amendments, after which a 30-minute break followed.

This Law requires additional BAM 14 million (around EUR 7 million) from the FBiH budget, which is contrary to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) condition for the continuation of the loan agreement – that the FBiH budget has no additional expenditures, in order to stabilise spending and provide for safe loan return to the IMF.

For this reason, the IMF announced earlier it would halt all payments until this issue is resolved.

Following the end of the sessions, the protestors left peacefully and no major incident was reported during the day.

 (EUR 1 = BAM 1.95583)