“Working breakfast of the Friends of Bosnia and Herzegovina aroused quite an interest, as after many years BiH was back on the agenda. This is the first time a meeting was held in this format for any country in the region,” said First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Integration Vesna Pusić after a working breakfast of the Friends of BiH, organized by Croatia in Luxembourg ahead of the Foreign Affairs Council meeting. Pusić said there was new optimism in regard to BiH due to the change of government and the EU’s approach towards the country. “The key topics of this informal meeting of EU foreign ministers were the financial package in combinations with the changes and reforms in BiH, coordination mechanism for pro-European reforms and intensified pace in light of the fact that tomorrow the SAA is to be activated,” Pusić said, adding that the EU member states, e.g. Great Britain, said they stood fully behind BiH’s European path. She also cited Germany’s support. “The European perspective of BiH has been confirmed and I consider that to be very important, especially in today’s climate of enlargement scepticism,” Pusić said, adding that today’s meeting was held in an atmosphere of “cautious optimism”.
After the working breakfast, Pusić will attend the FAC meeting, while in the afternoon together with Minister of the Interior Ranko Ostojić she is to participate in an extraordinary meeting of EU foreign and interior minister on concrete steps to be taking following this weekend’s drowning of more than 700 refugees trying to reach Italy.