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The EU delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina said on Tuesday that it has released 2.9 million euros to support the country’s efforts in war crimes cases.
The funding has been delayed for almost a year because the Bosnian authorities only adopted a justice sector reform strategy – a key condition of the EU – in the autumn of this year.
The money will be used to finance the work of 142 prosecutors, judges, legal advisers and other staff working on war crimes cases throughout the country.
The head of the EU delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lars-Gunnar Wigemark, said that the assistance is important because the country “faces a unique challenge in addressing the extensive backlog of war crime cases”.
“That is why over a five-year period the European Union will provide nearly 15 million euros to finance the continuous investigation and processing of the significant number of remaining war crimes cases throughout the country,” said Wigemark.
The funding’s delay has caused problems in the Bosnian judiciary.
Some prosecutors have been working without salaries, assistants have been fired and there were no funds for investigations.
The adoption of a justice sector reform strategy was delayed because the government in the Serb-led Republika Srpska entity was refusing to accept a draft which recommends the creation of an appeals court on the state level.
The Bosnian Serbs allege this represents an undermining of some of their autonomy.
This issue is still not resolved, and although the justice sector reform strategy was adopted, the creation of an appeals court and its jurisdiction is now the subject of discussions within Bosnia’s EU-led ‘structured dialogue on justice’.
