The EU legal framework in the area of human rights, the news introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, BiH’s priorities in the area of human rights and the projects in the field, were the four points discussed by the representatives of the Delegation of the European Union to BiH  at the meeting with the students of the European Regional Master’s Degree in Democracy and Human Rights, which took place on 20 January 2010 at the premises of the EU Delegation to BiH.

At the beginning of the meeting, Ambassador Dimitris Kourkoulas, Head of the EU Delegation to BiH briefly presented the history of the EU which, as he said, has been and is still changing. Speaking of the enlargement process, especially after political developments in Europe, such as the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the Cold War, Ambassador Kourkoulas said: “Although there are certain opinions that the entry of the new countries into the EU creates problems to the Union, I believe that the enlargement process is a historical need and the process that stabilises European continent. It stabilises countries at economic plan but also on a bilateral plan. The accession of each new member, especially after the Copenhagen criteria, makes the accession process more challenging. Every country has to show readiness, administrative capacity and ability to fulfil the necessary membership requirements, before all to harmonise its legislation with the EU legislation”.

As far as the progress made by BiH and its relation with other Balkan countries is concerned, Ambassador Kourkoulas emphasised that BiH unfortunately has not yet been recommended for the Schengen white list, which means that the dialogue on visa liberalisation has continued. “A lot of progress in relation to fulfil the benchmarks for visa liberalisation was made in the past few months and we hope that BiH will fulfil all requirements in the next few months in order for us to recommend BiH to be put on the Schengen white list. The requirements are not there to make it more difficult for a country on its road to the membership in the EU, but the EU has to show to the member states and to their public, which is very sceptical because of the illegal migrations, that the new candidate country guarantees that there would be no risks once it became a part of the Schengen zone. We do not expect a country to fulfil all the requirements and implement all reforms in one month, but in a reasonable period of time when the country will prepare itself to implement the EU legislation in order to use the benefits. Even when it becomes a member state, implementation of legislation is still a requirement for the financial support. Otherwise the funds will be suspended”, Ambassador Kourkoulas stated.

The students’ questions were related not only to the economic but also to political and religious problems in the region. Xavier Oleiro Ogando, Junior Expert for Human Rights within the EU Delegation to BiH had a presentation on EU’s approach on human rights in BiH. He explained to the students the EU legal basis in this area, the main highlights in respect to the human rights as well as establishment of a dialogue at all levels of the society as an important tool in the fight for human rights. Ms. Elisabet Tomasinec and Ms. Gordana Suvalija, representatives of the EU Delegation to BiH, also participated in the meeting.