State Property: PIC Support For Functional And Territorial Compromise

The Ambassadors of the Peace Implementation Council’s Steering Board reviewed the progress that Bosnia and Herzegovina has made to meeting the five objectives and two conditions set by the Peace Implementation Council in February, focusing on the apportionment of state property in particular.

Despite the adoption of a compromise framework by the State Property Commission, BiH’s governing parties have shown no political will to make progress completing this objective.

The Ambassadors of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) agreed that the starting point for resolving this long-standing issue should be the State Property Commission’s own compromise which sees the State-level institutions owning those properties needed for them to ‘functionally’ exercise their constitutional competencies, while other levels of government would own the remaining State Property based on ‘territorial’ principles.

In order to deliver in full on the PIC’s State property obligation the authorities in BiH must register ownership of all State property needed by the State to exercise its constitutional competencies in the land registries.

A clear legal framework by which the State can acquire additional public property in line with any future expansion of competencies will also need to be established.

The PIC’s Steering Board gave the High Representative their full backing to take up State property apportionment with party leaders in line with the ‘Functional and Territorial’ compromise apportionment criteria.

In February this year the Peace Implementation Council determined that an “acceptable and sustainable resolution of the issue of apportionment of property between State and other levels of government” is essential to set BiH is on the road to being a peaceful, viable state that is firmly on the road to EU integration. As a result agreement on the apportionment of State property is one of five objectives that would enable OHR’s closure and transition to a EUSR.