High Representative and Brcko Supervisor Welcome Establishing of District Office within CoM BiH

High Representative Dr Christian Schwarz-Schilling and Brcko Supervisor Susan Johnson welcomed the establishment of the Brcko District of BiH Office within the Council of Ministers of BiH today.

High Representative and the Brcko Supervisor congratulated the Brcko District and the State of BiH on this important step to ensure coordination and cooperation between State institutions and the Brcko District. The Brcko Final Arbitral Award, an integral part of the Dayton Peace Accords, established the District as a single unit of local self-government under the sovereignty of the State.

The High Representative encouraged both parties to invest maximum efforts in this important process. “The State will in the not too distantfuture take full responsibility for ensuring the District’s legal status and its multiethnic public institutions and for ensuring that it is treated as an integral part of BiH,” he said.

The Brcko Supervisor emphasized: “Two characteristics of the Brcko District distinguish it from most other units of local self government within BiH – the mulit-ethnic make-up of its public institutions, and its fiscal self-sustainability and relative economic revitalization. There is considerable evidence that both are results of its particular model of local self-government. This has enabled the District to be a significant contributor to a stronger State and is critical to the sustainability of the District in the coming years.”

Both the HR and the Supervisor expressed expectation that now that this Office has started its work, the State and Brcko District authorities will together to addressa variety of outstanding issues in an orderly, constructive and timely manner.