Baroness Helic – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Helic on 2016-07-07.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress the UK–German initiative for Bosnia–Herzegovina, announced in November 2014, has made; what recent discussions they have had with the government of Germany regarding that initiative; and what plans there are for continued UK engagement in that initiative.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The UK-German initiative was adopted by the EU at the December 2014 Foreign Affairs Council. Since then, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH) party leaders have signed a written commitment to implement a package of reforms (Reform Agenda); BiH’s Stabilisation and Association Agreement has come into force (1 June 2015); and BiH submitted its application for EU membership on 15 February 2016. Whilst some progress has been made in implementing the Reform Agenda, more needs to be done. The Government is in regular contact with Germany, other Member States and the EU institutions to encourage BiH’s leaders to maintain progress on reform. The Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), discussed implementation of the Reform Agenda with the Chairman of the BiH Council of Ministers, Denis Zvizdić, when they met on 11 July.
