First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusić is attending today a Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels. The main topic is Ukraine, but the meeting will also discuss a new approach for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Ahead of the session, Pusić told the reporters that the discussion on the new approach for BiH was extremely important. “This is a project we launched with two non-papers in spring, when there was still certain scepticism about it. Today’s meeting has an important task of turning this initiative, which has since grown into a British-German initiative, into a European project. We must convince all of the EU member states to support it,” Pusić said. She said that the basic idea behind the new approach to BiH was to rearrange the steps in bringing the country closer to the EU candidate status, adding that the most important task of the new BiH leadership was to bring the country to candidate status. “That process de facto begins today,” the minister said.
Commenting on the provisional release of Vojislav Šešelj from the Hague Tribunal, Pusić said that Šešelj was first and foremost causing damage to Serbia, which at this moment “has a mad war criminal in its streets”. It threatens Croatia as well, but also Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is less stable and is just at the beginning of its European path, Pusić said, adding that Šešelj’s release „represents a potentially disruptive factor in regional relations and public opinion. I will certainly mention that in the context of BiH and warn about the aggravating circumstance that has appeared, which is, and I have no better expression for it, a mad element in the region.”
Asked about the UN Security Council discussion on BiH, the minister said that Russia’s abstention worried Croatia, as it believed that EU membership was in the interest of the Western Balkans. Russia 11 November abstained from voting on a UN resolution because it mentioned the Euro-Atlantic integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina.