The “collective priority” of the incoming governments must be to establish “a properly regulated internal market that will attract investment, sustain growth in employment and protect consumers,” High Representative and EU Special Representative Valentin Inzko told an international business seminar in Sarajevo today.

“The economic agenda that Bosnia and Herzegovina has agreed to implement as part of its European Union accession path is a blueprint for creating a market in which positive things can happen,” he said, and he called on the general public to demand that their newly-elected leaders start implementing this blueprint.

“The principal stumbling block is that economic laws have been viewed as pieces on a chessboard, to be moved or held back according to tactical advantage,” he said, arguing that a clear distinction should be made between difficult political reforms and economic reforms that must be implemented “in the coming weeks and months” so as to start rolling back the spread of poverty.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is changing, the HR/EUSR concluded. “The incoming leaders can show that they have understood this change by making the economy the first item of business in the new parliaments.”