The negotiating team handling the issue of trade with the European Union in the Foreign Trade Ministry of Bosnia and Herzegovina has made its recommendation to the Council of Ministers not to accept the Union's request to allow duty-free imports from Croatia after July 1, the team's chief negotiator, Dragisa Mekic, said on Thursday.
"All that is required is to sign a supplementary protocol to the interim trade agreement with the EU", Mekic said in an interview with BH Radio 1, explaining that this referred to some mere technical adjustments relating to Croatia's accession to the EU, while the essence of the agreement would remain as it is now.
"In our opinion this is a technical adaptation, a technical adjustment to the agreement which means that the word 'Croatia' will be added to the text of the agreement", he said.
He added that the European Commission had asked that traditional duty-free trade relations be considered which is based on the practice of previous enlargement processes.
"In the explanation we sent to the Council of Ministers we precisely defined why this is unacceptable", Mekic said, underscoring that he expected the opinion to be discussed and adopted at the next session of the Council.
The team's stance is that Bosnia has to protect its market with duties so that its products can prepare for EU entry, with the most sensitive products being milk, meat, fruit, vegetables and tobacco.
Mekic claimed that Bosnia had been set unjustly low quotas to export fish, sugar and wine to the EU and that it wanted to change this situation.
"Everything now is up to these negotiations", he said, claiming that Brussels has made increased export quotas for the country conditional on concessions related to Croatia's accession to the Union.
"We are not prepared to do so even if they do increase our quotas, we are prepared only to make limited concessions in our mutual interest", Mekic said, adding that Serbia had the same stance.
