Speeches

It is my very great pleasure to be here today, particularly as the occasion is HVB Bank’s opening of its branch network in BiH. As most of you know, the banking sector is one of the success stories in the BiH economy. The reasons are clear. At the end of 2000 the old socialist-era payments clearance system was abolished and the commercial ban [...]

It is my great pleasure to attend this round table and to be able to contribute to a process that very much reflects the issues we at the OHR are concerned with and which we are ready to deal with vigorously in partnership with BiH business and the BiH authorities. I particularly salute all the investors present here -- for the truth is, ladies a [...]

It is one hundred days since Paddy Ashdown took office as the High Representative. He began his tenure with an address to the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina in which he outlined his strategy for helping this country move irreversibly onto the road to statehood within Europe. Paddy summed up his priorities as -- First Justice, the [...]

A very important process is now underway in Brcko District, and I want to be sure that every business in the District is aware of it. Every company must re-register with the Brcko Court, and every company must obtain a new tax number from the District Revenue Agency, by December 31. The time to do this is now. Do not wait until December, when th [...]

As you know, tensions have increased in Arizona Market as the Brcko District Government has moved to implement the redevelopment contract by closing down unauthorized businesses. At least the situation has become clearer: some landowners, and perhaps criminal elements, organized an illegal blockage of the Orazje-Tuzla Road last week, they have i [...]

May I begin by thanking you for inviting me to address you today, and to engage with you in what I hope will be a frank and uninhibited question and answer session afterwards. This is the third time I have spoken in a legislature since I arrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina just two months ago. And I look forward to making it four when the RSNA re-co [...]

Let me start by conveying to you the High Representative’s apologies for not being able to come here to address you today. He has asked me to come and speak to you on his behalf, and to assure you that he will make good on his commitment by coming up to address you in person at the earliest opportunity. I intend to speak only for a few minute [...]

On Tuesday, 23 July 2002, the Brcko District Assembly adopted the Brcko District Government’s proposal declaring the public interest in expropriating in Arizona Market. This important and necessary step follows the Assembly’s earlier actions in approving the December 2001 contract with Italproject, and approving the Regulatory Plan for [...]

So. Here we are again. At the current rate, I am in danger of addressing the BiH State Parliament more often than I used to address my own Parliament back in London! But seriously, I am grateful for this opportunity to speak to you once again, to expand upon the message I brought you a couple of months ago, and to open up a meaningful dialogue ab [...]

The great nineteenth-century British prime minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Gladstone, once wrote that “finance is the stomach of the country, from which all other organs take their tone.” A century and a half later, the International Community’s High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, is [...]