Author: Anes Makul
In order for Bosnia and Herzegovina to file a credible application for full EU membership, it is necessary – in addition to implementing the Sejdić-Finci judgment – for it to adopt a so called coordinating mechanism intended to ensure that the whole country is pulling in the same direction.
A credible application could be described as an application for EU membership that would stand a realistic chance of being accepted, in which case Bosnia and Herzegovina would acquire the status of a candidate country. The coordinating mechanism itself actually means communication between certain levels of government in charge for certain segments, which would help form the basis of a unified stance on certain issues.
Currently, the jurisdiction of the Directorate for European Integration of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina includes a coordinating role in the process of EU integration, but the institution cannot preform its role properly due to a lack of political support.
But why is there so much insistence on a coordinating mechanism? The European Union requires from both its current and its potential member countries complete harmonization of all policies, their effective implementation and their having a common aim during EU integrations. It is not enough to merely adopt the Union’s legislation, but also to enable its complete implementation which has been specifically highlighted in the Madrid, i.e. administrative criteria adopted during the European Council Summit in 1995. Furthermore, all of the Union’s own policies are harmonized since they are based on strategic documents adopted by all Union members. This is especially the case with the current strategic framework Europe 2020 which defines goals scheduled to be achieved by 2020, and according to which every member country sends yearly reports on its progress in implementing the proposed measures.
Currently, Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have harmonized policies. Due to its complicated constitutional structure, there are two to four levels of government (depending on the entities and the district) – municipal, cantonal, entity and state level. There are 13 constitutions, 13 governments and 13 legislatures in the entire country, each operating independently without following clearly defined aims at a higher level of government, because certain jurisdictions are tied by the constitution to a certain level of government. Even after the February protests, some European officials drew attention to the country’s dysfunctionality and the need for changes.
An example of this dysfunctionality is education in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), an area under the jurisdiction of the cantons in which the federal ministry only has a coordinating role but does not have the authority to impose legislation onto the cantonal ministries, although general laws on education do exist on state-level. A good indication of this discrepancy was visible during the establishment of the coordinating Committee for Educational Ministries in FBiH, when seven cantonal ministries assented to participate, while the other three declined.
Examples are numerous in the field of strategic planing as well, with strategic documents being adopted first on lower, disharmonious levels of government, and then passing on to higher levels of government where a higher-level strategy is drafted by extracting what is common in the disparate documents.
These are the sort of examples from everyday practice that go against both the practice of EU countries and EU requirements. When the European Commission, the Union’s executive body, negotiates over a particular area or seeks information about something, it communicates not with the lower levels of government but with representatives of the state-level, a fact that has been repeatedly emphasized by Union officials. A “unified stance” requires harmonization of all policies and coordination from a single place, i.e. going from state-level down to lower levels of government. The document Necessary administrative capacities for implementing EU legislation states that „regardless of its operative authority, state-level government always has the obligation of coordinating and actively participating in policy creation, collecting information on adopted policies, which it then forwards to the European Commission and, when necessary, other member countries. Simultaneously, the country receives information from the European Commission and other relevant institutions which it forwards to relevant institutions on the highest as well as lower levels of government.”
Contrary to statements of certain political representatives from Bosnia and Herzegovina, state-level coordinating does not imply creating a centralized state, but rather adjusting to the practices of EU member countries. It is necessary to strengthen the coordinating role of the state in order to implement laws and adopt unified policies on the highest level. The institutional framework has partly been formed, i.e. there is a number of institutional bodies in ministries and agencies on state-level, but due to constitutional authority these institutions cannot perform their duties fully, resulting in a dysfunctional state.