Bosnian authorities reiterated on Friday that keeping the present customs-free regime for imports from Croatia after it joins the European Union and expanding it to include other EU countries would be very harmful to the Bosnian economy, the FTV television network said.
"The practice earlier used by the EU is unacceptable to Bosnia and Herzegovina. If Croatia imported 100 tonnes of a certain commodity, now they want for those 100 tonnes a customs-free quota for all EU countries. This will worsen the situation because the goods will be even more competitive because of increased subsidies," the Bosnian chief negotiator with the EU, Dragisa Mekic, said after an emergency meeting of the state delegation involved in talks on a protocol to the interim trade agreement with the EU.
Mekic said that such a regime would lead to many Croatian companies backing down from their plans to relocate their production to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The deputy head of the EU delegation in Sarajevo, Renzo Daviddi, called on the Bosnian authorities to accept the EU's recommendations as that would open up a possibility of increasing export quotas for certain products from the country. He criticised the authorities for being six years late in opening talks on the impact of Croatia's EU entry on Bosnia and Herzegovina and urged the authorities to pursue dialogue with the European Commission on increasing Bosnian export quotas for sugar, fish and wine if the present customs-free regime was kept for Croatia and expanded to include all EU members.
