The Reform Process Monitoring (RPM) plenary session took place in Sarajevo on 20 February 2008. Cooperation with ICTY, public administration reform, single economic space, and public broadcasting service were the main issues addressed by Mr Pierre Mirel, Director for Western Balkans in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Enlargement and by Mr Osman Topčagić, Director of the Directorate for European Integration of BiH.

In his address, Mr Pierre Mirel reminded that these RPM meetings are part of the political dialogue which is part of the pre-accession strategy. He welcomed the demonstration of democratic procedures referring to the proposed legislation in regard to the police reform that will be deliberated in the BiH Parliament today, after being adopted by the Council of Ministers and approved by the relevant Parliamentary committees. «This has to be acknowledged as major step forward”, said Mirel.

Furthermore, Mr Mirel explained why he is insisting on the importance of single economic space, and reminded that «it is essential for countries in transition to boost trade and investment, for the economic growth and for the job creation» In this regard he added that «each country needs to reform internally, to remove obstacles to investments and to create a transparent and fair legal framework for attracting investments.”

In his overview of the BiH cooperation with ICTY, Mr Mirel acknowledged that this cooperation is good, but that «European Commission would like to see more investigations in the field in order to identify all assets that can be or are already used by supporters of the ICTY indictees.» 

In regard to Public Broadcasting System reform, Mr Mirel regretfully acknowledged the lack of progress, noting that the Constitutional Court ruling on the matter is still pending. Once again, he underlined the importance of resolving this issue.

Talking about other issues that were discussed at the RPM plenary session, Mr Topčagić noted the progress in the insurance sector, which has enabled insurance companies domicile in one entity to open branch offices in the other entity. Furthermore, he expressed satisfaction that progress was identified in certain other fields, but once more he underlined that there was a lot more work to be done.

Issues discussed in the afternoon included such relevant matters as juvenile delinquency, reform of the prison system, improvement of the living conditions of the intellectually disabled persons living in specialised Centres, implementation of human rights conventions and issues related to the rights of the national minorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The RPM plenary session followed the sectoral RPM session, which took place on 19 February 2008. This session looked closely into developments in several relevant sectors, including internal market, competition, environment, transportation and energy. Special focus was paid to the assessment of progress in the implementation of the European Partnership priorities and other BiH international obligations in the field of services and right of establishment, free movement of capital, public procurement, intellectual property, anti-trust, state aids, environment, and the Land Transport Protocol to the SAA, European Common Aviation Area, SEE Core Regional Transport Network, Energy Community Treaty Electricity and Gas Road Maps

About RPM

RPM meetings are one of the tools to monitor reform process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The first Reform Process Monitoring (RPM) meeting was held in 2006, as a substitute to the EU/BiH Consultative Task Force (CTF) which was established in 1998 as a joint vehicle for political dialogue and expert advice.

These meetings are the place where all relevant issues in relation to the Euro-Integration process are discussed and where set of future activities are being outlined.