The Peace Implementation Council discussed the results of the Mostar Reform Commission yesterday in Brussels.Senior Deputy High Representative Werner Wnendt informed the PIC that agreement on a broad range of issues had been reached in the commission, making it possible for Commission Chairman Norbert Winterstein to make clear recommendations to the High Representative by 15 December, that will provide the citizens of Mostar with a unified city administration that will derive from and follow the best European practices.
In their communiqué, the PIC Steering Board said that “will give its full support to the implementation of a solution to the issue of Mostar based on a single coherent city administration with effective guaranteed power-sharing mechanisms which prevent any one people having majority control of the City Council.”
Commenting on the discussion in the PIC, the High Representative today said: “The countries of the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Committee have made clear that they support a single unified city of Mostar. The problems of Mostar have cast a major political and economic shadow over the post-war recovery of BiH as a whole. That is why the European Union expects BiH to address the problems of Mostar as part of the process of European integration. The Mostar Commission has made substantial progress towards resolving these problems, problems that have for so many years prevented the citizens of that city leading normal lives. We owe it to them, and to BiH as a whole, to build on what the Commission has achieved”.
The OHR will set out its views on how to take forward the process of unifying the City of Mostar after the High Representative receives Mr Winterstein’s report.