Remarks by Jurgis Vilcinskas, Head of Political & Economic Section, Delegation of the European Union to BiH

Dear Guest Speakers and participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Croatia’s accession to the EU has been a story of renovation, of hard, but right choices and of many discoveries – including about the perseverance needed to complete the accession process, the need for self-belief and the need for optimism!

Like many of you, I have followed it from the start of Croatia’s Accession negotiations back in October 2005. In many ways it was a story of once-in-a-lifetime economic reforms, which for me was more fascinating than the end goal of the EU membership itself, which we will applaud on July 1st in Zagreb.

As for the rest of the region and for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia’s story offers several good lessons.

The first one is about the will to succeed.

From first sight, the EU membership perspective looks like a Mount Everest to climb – 200.000 pages of acquis, a massive bill for economic reforms you will have to pay up-front, major restructuring of judiciary and confrontation with corruption and crime. It is technical, it is time and mind consuming, but in the end – it is do-able, as Croatia’s example shows.

I think all, and especially business and political leadership of Bosnia and Herzegovina, should learn and take encouragement from this for their daily work. Everyone should have a good look at the map of south-east Europe to understand that there is no alternative to the next-door EU market for trade and investment.

The second lesson for me is that you have to learn from the mistakes of others, but do not ‘cut and paste’ solutions, as each country is a specific one, has its own tempo and priorities.

This said, time is of essence for the Enlargement policy. The past year has witnessed strong progress by a number of countries in the region on the pathway towards the EU. Serbia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are now candidate countries. Accession negotiations have already opened with Montenegro. 

The EU remains firmly committed to supporting BiH’s progress towards European Union as it slowly makes economic and rule of law reforms. However, the EU will not offer any shortcuts or discounts. Bosnia and Herzegovina, like all other aspirant states, will have to adjust to the European Union requirements and standards.

The issue of Bosnia and Herzegovina exporting its agricultural goods to the EU markets is a vivid example which you will discuss in the 2nd panel of the workshop. In order to export these goods to the EU, the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina must do the major part of the work introducing stricter EU food safety standards. They have the final responsibility for drafting business friendly laws, setting up standards and agreeing clear allocation of competences.

The third lesson is that you cannot join one regional block without resolving the problems you have in your own immediate neighbourhood.

It goes both ways – the EU refuses to import any unresolved bilateral issues for many good reasons, including its own lessons learned. But it should be of top interest for Croatia to make sure that its Accession is a positive externality, which results in a benefit and not the additional cost for a neighbour.

Today the case of Croatia and BiH is a case of high-intensity cooperation: Croatia is accounting for 15% of BiH foreign trade volume, for more than 6 millions of border crossings annually, not to speak about the double citizenship holders and absence of any language barrier. The two also share special Neum and Ploce transit arrangements, which show just how mutually you depend on each other.

I believe that equal partners like these two have to approach this inter-dependency with extra care, with a mindset to develop a clear Roadmap on how to step-by-step resolve all outstanding bilateral issues. And if needed – take along the way smart lessons from previous Enlargement rounds in the East of Europe! 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me conclude by saying that as the EU is coming close to BiH, we see huge opportunities from which the two countries can draw advantage. Whether it is re-allocation of production or green-field investments to taking advantage of lower labour or energy costs in BiH, or exports of BiH dairy goods to Croatian/EU market – all this is likely to bring new jobs for unemployed youth, pay off taxes and pensions. 

However, in order for this to take place, remaining challenges linked to changes in border management and post-CEFTA trade environment have to be addressed, both by Governments and businesses.

This is the very reason why the the EU Delegation, in co-operation with Council of Ministers and its Chairman Vjekoslav Bevanda, have established our stand here at the service of civil servants, experts and the business community.

Let our discussion be frank and open, because this is the only way to come up with ideas and tools that will bring better business and investment environment out of Croatia’s EU accession.

Thank you for your attention.