Employers, workers, entrepreneurs, investors and other stakeholders in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s can make policymakers re-focus their attention on economic reforms, the High Representative and EU Special Representative, Miroslav Lajčak, said today.

Ambassador Lajčak said that if Bosnia and Herzegovina is to follow the successful example of other transition countries, stakeholders must demonstrate that reforms can and will deliver real benefits to hard-pressed citizens and they must impress this fact on policymakers and get them to enact and implement necessary reforms without further delay.

Meeting union and employers’ representatives this morning the High Representative and EU Special Representative stressed that, while he is prepared to lobby governments to implement these and other reforms, the economic stakeholders, businessmen and unions must support him.

In a separate meeting with representatives from the Foreign Trade Chamber, the Foreign Investors’ Council and the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency Ambassador Lajčak called for new thinking on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s economic environment and a better dialogue with all levels of Government.

“Working to eliminate the obstacles to BiH’s prosperity is a central element in the overall strategy of normalizing politics and getting the country into Europe,” Ambassador Lajčak said. “If poverty and unemployment remain at present levels then all our efforts in other areas will come to nothing, and policymakers have to understand this.