MEETING OF GO SSD BiH, Sarajevo

Round tables:

Opening remarks :

16:00h – 16:10h …….Hasan Šehovic, SSD BiH, President

He greeted everyone present, thanked them for their attendance. He announced the round tables and topics that will be covered. Special attention was paid to the general elections in October 2018, low turnout of the diaspora; reasons: complicated method of registration and voting. For several years we have been sending letters to official institutions and requesting passive registration and a different method of voting; by issuing biometric passports to automatically register on the ballots. We would like to pay special attention to all our members in the countries where we live, appealing to citizens to vote. We call on political parties to provide information and establish a dialogue with citizens living outside of BiH. He asked the CEC to instruct us where and how to contact them to change the current voting procedure.

With the current system, even when we send the requested documents to the CEC, we do not receive feedback on whether they have been received, and if so, whether the registration has been completed. We have to personally request this information through subsequent verification. This needs to be improved and we should receive feedback electronically that the documents have been properly received.

I asked Mr. Arnautovic to provide us with accurate data from the CEC, such as the number of potential voters from the diaspora, how many from the diaspora registered to vote, how many voted, and how many had irregular documents and were not included in the voter lists.

ROUND TABLE-1: “October elections in BiH – review and analysis”

16:20h – 16:25h …… Introduction: Hamdija Malic, SSD BiH – RG for legal issues

16:25h – 16:35h ….. Kemo Sarač, MLJPI – assistant minister

He thanked for the invitation, especially pleased that we were seeing each other again and that he had the opportunity to talk and continue our otherwise successful cooperation.

Conveyed greetings from Minister Borovac, who could not be present due to illness, while the other members from the emigration sector were at the same time at another meeting outside Sarajevo, so they could not attend.

Mr. Sarac emphasized that the greatest success in recent years in the work of official institutions with the diaspora is actually the adoption of the Policy on Work with Emigrants (Council of Ministers, 99th Session). The bearer of activities related to this policy is that within these activities we particularly rely on and pay attention to the 4 pillars of this strategy: 1. Information segments and regulations, 2. improvement of cooperation with all citizen organizations, 3. investments and work on improving conditions for investments, 4. Work with youth in the diaspora. A conference on youth from the diaspora is also being prepared, which will be realized during this year. The Ministry regularly sends invitations to experts from the diaspora from various fields to get involved in the work of institutions in BiH and transfer knowledge. Criteria for awarding recognition to individuals, organizations and associations in the diaspora have been adopted. A “web portal” was established in February 2018 with the aim of informing our people about the activities. So far, the most information sent to the web portal by our members has come from the UK.

The MHRR has always been and will continue to be open to working with the SSD BiH, we support the activities and programs of the SSD BiH, and participation in joint projects in the future is of particular importance.

A letter from the University of Sarajevo entitled “Be who you are, study what you want” was read, inviting all our young people to come and study at this university. 19.04.2019. The University of Sarajevo will organize an event and present study opportunities.

Mr. Sarac finally thanked once again for the invitation and wished the GO SSD BiH successful work.

16:35h – 16:59h …… Dr. Suad Arnautović, member of the Central Election Commission of BiH

He greeted everyone present and thanked them for the invitation. The Diaspora is most closely linked to the Election Law, Art. 1/5, which defines the method of registering voters on the voter lists and the method of voting;

Registration on the voter list: only active; voting method: for now by mail or voting at a DKP. Voting by mail is the most difficult and complicated, while voting at a DKP has two pitfalls: the first is that we do not have a DKP where there is a lot of diaspora, and the second is that representation of all constituent peoples must be ensured.

Voter lists are regulated by Article 3 of the Election Law and this is the only method currently being applied.

Art.5/28 of the Election Law: postmark no later than the date of voting, if it arrived later, regardless of when the package was submitted before that date, voting takes place within the CEC and then a re-vote is held on whether the votes received in this way are valid (?!),

Art. 20/12 of the Election Law: voting in DCMs is possible only where the CEC and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs determine that all conditions are met to conduct the vote, especially the technical conditions, which are otherwise modest in DCMs.

Art.20/8 of the Election Law: special rights, until the High Representative or the Parliamentary Assembly changes this method, it still applies; i.e. whether to register as a “temporary resident” or as a “refugee”. We should be careful and when filling out the PRP1, PRP2 forms, indicate as a “refugee” since we practically have that status according to this article of the law.

The complicated system is also confirmed by the fact that there are 13 more regulations related to selection and registration.

The task of the diaspora: you must raise your voice to be heard, do not be silent, constantly let official institutions know through name-calling that you are dissatisfied and discriminated against, you must force them to do so (amend the law).

Overview of registered voters and the number of voters from individual countries:

Australia: 403 submitted documents, 45 registered, 32 voted

Austria: 6429 reported-3612 approved; 302 voted – 202 valid votes

Norway: 1160 reported-879 approved; 179 voted – 135 valid votes

Germany: 10838 registered-6426 approved; 416 voted-327 valid votes

USA: 2020 reported-1220 approved; 83 voted – 69 valid votes

Serbia: 14670 registered-9254 approved; 302 voted-202 valid votes

Diaspora received a total of 76,689 requests, 50,469 approved.

A total of 65.82% of the total number of approved voters voted.

Voting at diplomatic missions is possible in Canberra, Oslo, Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Vienna and Chicago.

Total CEC costs: 711,405 KM for diaspora voting (postage, employees, other costs).

How to increase diaspora participation:

A continuous process of registering on the voter lists, not just before the elections; and registration afterwards;
Equalize the registration process for citizens from BiH and abroad;
Strengthen information activities, constantly provide information and appeal;
Ask political parties to go outside of BiH and carry out propaganda;
Demand a more active role for the diplomatic mission and for votes to be sent through diplomatic mail;
Appointment of honorary consuls where there is no diplomatic mission and enabling voting there;
Connect associations outside of BiH with the CEC to point out problems and solve them together;
Work with the diaspora now to increase registration and voting for the 2020 local elections.

A tender worth 300,000 EURO has been announced, the Lünemark company that will monitor the work of the CEC, it is important that the diaspora also participate in this process. A system should be improved and installed where it will be possible to scan ballots.

17:00h – 17:30h …. Questions, answers, comments:

Becirovic (Norway) – to send all requested data by email
Pasic (UK) – thanked Mr. Arnautovic, in England they worked on the joint collection and sending of parcels by post
Isovic (SRVI Germany) – it has been determined that someone voted for my mother who is not alive; how is that possible?
Sehovic – how many potential voters are there in the diaspora, how many voted; in case the mail is returned with the ballots, why is it not sent again (personal case – mail returned during annual leave)
Arnautovic (CIK) – voting for those who are not alive, unfortunately there were recorded cases, such votes were annulled, omission of local officials; total potential of the diaspora 700,000, approved around 50 thousand, voted around 35 thousand.

Contact IDEA from Banja Luka (Nanic) and ask to receive all the statistical data.

There are three basic requirements for registration: citizen of BiH, 18 years of age, and residence outside BiH. Constantly register.

It was concluded (H.Sehovic) that Mr. Arnautovic fully explained and presented the situation with the diaspora, explained the legal regulations professionally and at the level, as well as gave guidelines on how to improve the response of the diaspora and the way of working in the coming period, for which we thanked him and expect cooperation in the future, which was accepted.

(Coffee break 17:30-17:45)

ROUND TABLE-2: The role of the diaspora in economic flows and cooperation with institutions in BiH

17:45 – 17:50 ….. Hasan Sehović, RG for Business SSD BiH

He welcomed the attendees and explained the importance of cooperation between the diaspora and institutions from BiH at all levels, non-governmental organizations, and especially with local communities. The diaspora sends about 3 billion KM to BiH every year through direct remittances, and this amount is twice as much through direct spending. In addition, the diaspora is capital and a huge force that should be directed towards BiH, using their knowledge, experience, skills and enabling the transfer of technologies from abroad. Working on joint projects, and all of this should be enabled through legislation, where the diaspora will practically be included in the legal system of BiH. For this reason, we invited representatives of a bank, local community, non-governmental organization and international organization as an institution working in BiH on financing projects for the diaspora to this round table. The representative of the NGO Nasa perspektiv-Diaspora invest, Armin Alijagic, was unable to attend this round table due to health reasons. USAID representatives also did not appear, and later reported that they had a conference on the same day that unexpectedly dragged on, so they were unable to arrive.

17:50h – 18:00h …. Samir Kamenjaković, Municipality of Zivinice – head

He thanked for the invitation, greeted all those present and stressed the exceptional importance of communication and cooperation between the diaspora and local communities. For this reason, they opened a diaspora office in the municipality of Zivinice and want to connect, primarily with citizens who have emigrated from Zivinice, and of course cooperate with individuals and organizations from all over BiH.

The municipality has a business center, you can get a business certificate in 2 hours, a business zone has also been opened, where investors can easily get plots and start their business, 40 million KM has been invested so far, and about 1000 people are employed. We have organized the work through five mayor’s councils: youth, women, investments, business and diaspora (for now, interactively). We are going to brand the municipality and the diaspora, which will be in December, the focus will be on language and culture, we have founded the Diaspora Association Zivinica, opened a diaspora office, hired a person with a higher education degree, we have sent a special message to the state to urgently form a ministry for the diaspora; the diaspora is a great resource, institutions must connect with the diaspora, which is a great value for BiH. The issue of passive registration for elections should be checked as an assessment of the constitutionality of this situation. We have positive examples of returnees, in our municipality the production of fire trucks for the EU market has been launched.

You, as a diaspora, can re-educate politicians in BiH with your appearances and work.

He invited us to join and attend the Diaspora Days organized by the municipality of Zivinice in December. Thank you for the invitation once again and know that the doors of my municipality are always open to you.

18:00h – 18:05h .…. Dino Selimović, BBI

He greeted the attendees and thanked them for the invitation, BBI Bank will, within the framework of the memorandum we signed with SSD BiH, create special projects for the diaspora. We expect business and business opportunities with all members of SSD BiH. In BiH, financial institutions are stable; BBI Bank always has around EUR 1 billion in assets. I invite you and your associates, business people from around the world to attend the BBI business forum which will be held in Sarajevo from April 17-19

In addition, we are also organizing a halal fair, which was held last year in September, and this year it will be organized in the same month, so I also invite you to participate. The banking sector is adapted to the diaspora, especially reflected in favorable loans and assistance to the returnee population. We want to expand cooperation with the diaspora, and in my opinion, the main carrier of this cooperation can be SSD BiH. 18:05h – 18:10h .. Muamer Salkić, BBI He greeted everyone present and expressed his satisfaction at having the opportunity to address the members of the SSD BiH Executive Committee. BBI Bank is the only bank founded with foreign capital where the total profit remains in BiH. BBI has 34 branches in BiH, we pay special attention to supporting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. We have made an agreement with the Zenica Canton on cooperation. BBI is the fastest growing bank in BiH, with an increase of 19.7% in the last 10 years. BBI plays an important role in the development of BiH, SSD BiH can be a bridge in cooperation with the BiH diaspora. We will do everything to facilitate conditions and help those who want to invest in BiH and create special programs for these projects. n18:05 – 18:15 .…. Armin Alijagić, Our Perspective (Diaspora Invest)

(Cancelled participation due to surgery and health reasons)

18:05 – 18:15 …… Azra Bećirović, Horizons 2024, Alliance for the Support of Economic and Social Development

She thanked for the invitation and greeted everyone present. She particularly emphasized the importance of working with SSD BiH, namely with young people from the diaspora. Creative cooperation on joint projects. She offered and presented a cooperation agreement with SSD BiH. A particularly interesting joint appearance on projects financed by IPA, COSMI, EUREKA, Erasmus+… We need to choose sectors for the application together. We have established a project monitoring center and in the future include young people from SSD BiH. The transfer of knowledge from the diaspora is particularly desirable. The least funds have been withdrawn from IPA funds so far and we need to work on this more seriously. Define priorities, so that we can jointly find partners, especially what position to take and determine the approach when writing projects. The diaspora is of particular importance, she hopes that the signed cooperation agreement will show us concrete results very soon.

18:15 – 18:25 …… Fadil Fatic, Deputy Director of the Statistical Agency of BiH

He thanked for the opportunity to address, otherwise they are partners with Horizonti 2014. Diaspora 12 months of stay in BiH, and not just during the holidays. You have experts in the diaspora, but we do not have adequate knowledge of how to work in the EU, you will recognize the idea and to have interaction in projects. Business potential investors need certain data, analyses, constructive data that they can rely on. You should see us as a service that is always at your service. We have all the data on goods, market, investments, movement of people, tourism, feel free to contact us. We expect a lot from SSD BiH and for it to be the initiator of all actions.

18:25 – 18:45 ….. Questions, Discussions and Conclusions

Zaim Pasic: BBI Bank should do all projects electronically and forward and present them to the diaspora in that way.

Samir Zametica: question for BBI Bank – what is the package of financial services for the diaspora?

BBI Bank representative Muamer Salkic replied that they had prepared a package of services for the diaspora and that they would deliver them to SSD BiH in a timely manner, and at the beginning of the meeting they handed out materials to all participants where we have a presentation of the bank and investment projects in BiH by sector in electronic format.

Hasan Sehovic: thanked all participants with the joint conclusion that such round tables should be held more often. He also confirmed the participation of SSD BiH in the upcoming 10th Business Forum organized by BBI Bank; signing the contract with Horizonti 2024 will be discussed at tomorrow’s GO meeting, and he personally believes that there will be no problems in establishing cooperation.

We will arrange a meeting and participation of businessmen and cultural and artistic societies at the Diaspora Days in Zivinice in December 2019 with the mayor of the municipality of Zivinice.

Present:

GO SSD BiH:

Hasan Sehovic, Hamdija Malic, Zeljko Javor, Jasmin Bajric, Kerim Dizdar, Almir Balihodzic, Merjem Brkovic-mladi, Muhamed Siranovic, Nedzad Solunovic, Hajrudin Isovic, Dzenan Novic (Miralem Becirovic), Edin Hajder (Samir Zametica), Zaim Pasic (NO), Smajo Murguz (NO)