“The EU puts great importance on the contribution of civil society to the EU integration process. As stated in the Lisbon Treaty, participatory democracy is a fundamental democratic principle of the EU and dialogue with representative of associations and civil society is crucial. Institutions should maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative of NGOs and civil society for the improvement of policy making and legislation as well as for the inherent value of the insights they can provide,” said Ambassador Peter Sorensen, Head of the EU Delegation to BiH/EU Special Representative, with regard to the adoption of the Amendments to the Rules of Consultations at the 108th session of the BiH Council of Ministers.
Through these amendments, public consultations in the process of drafting public policies and adoption of legislation become a legal obligation for all state level institutions.
“Institutional cooperation of governments and civil society organisations contributes to transparent decision making and helps BiH move further on its path towards to EU. We welcome the Council of Ministers’ adoption of the Amendments to the Rules of Consultations at state level, and we encourage all levels of governance in BiH to take similar steps in developing institutional mechanisms of cooperation with civil society. I also acknowledge the positive steps taken by the Council of Ministers to have the Cooperation Agreement between the Council of Ministers and civil society revised and finally implemented. We urge the Working Group to convene and make fast progress on this important matter,” Ambassador Sorensen said.
The BiH Ministry of Justice and the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, in cooperation with the experts from the EU funded project “Strengthening capacities of governmental institutions for participation in policy dialogue with civil society (CBGI)”, are currently developing a web platform for online consultations, to enable all citizens to be aware of regulations to be adopted and to engage their participation in policy making. The platform is expected to be available in November 2014.
The CBGI project is financed by the European Union in the amount of 969,200 EUR through IPA 2011. The project’s duration is 24 months and it is implemented by Kronauer Consulting.
