The House of Representatives of the BiH Parliament was to postpone today the session in which two important laws for the opening of accession negotiations with the EU were to be adopted, and the postponement came at the insistence of representatives of the SNSD led by pro-Russian Milorad Dodik.

House of Representatives Speaker Denis Zvizdić told reporters only that he will try to organize a new session on January 23rd and believes that the country is still wasting time unnecessarily in this way and falling behind in the European integration process.

"You are absolutely right that we are wasting time, in my opinion, completely unnecessary, but the issue of adopting these laws is a matter of political will. Today we had the fact that we would not have a sufficient majority of the entity from Republika Srpska, that we would not be able to adopt two laws by the 23rd, there is a possibility that a political compromise regarding the adoption of two laws can still be reached," said Zvizdić.

The House of Representatives has had to consider and adopt laws on personal data protection and border control that are in line with the EU acquis, and they are on the list of a number of legal solutions, the adoption of which the European Commission is insisting on convening an intergovernmental conference at which a negotiating framework would be adopted. It is necessary to officially open a negotiation process with BiH.

Although SNSD representatives had previously been involved in drafting laws on personal data protection and border control, the party’s representative in the House of Representatives, Milorad Kojic, said on Thursday that the laws were unacceptable as “the proposed solutions supposedly remove some of the competences of the entities.”

"They are persistently trying to use European history to plant a transfer of power, which we do not allow," Kojic explained the reasons for the new blockade.

Zvizdić, however, warned that the adoption of additional laws is now a real test that will show who in BiH is truly in favor of European integration and who is only declaratively advocating it.