EU welcomes election of Bosnias new PM.

By bne IntelliNews January 13, 2012
The European Union welcomed the January 12 election of Vjekoslav Bevanda as prime minister of Bosnias new state level government more than 15 months following the elections, the EU delegation to the country said. We hope a speedy allocation of ministerial portfolios will follow in order to enable the new CoM [council of ministers] to get on with work on the long overdue and necessary EU-related reforms, the spokesman of the EU delegation to Bosnia, Andy McGuffie, said in a statement. We look forward to assisting the new BiH authorities in making progress on the EU agenda, he added. Bevanda was voted in as prime minister by 31 deputies in Bosnia's 42-seat central parliament, Agence France-Presse reported. Only two deputies voted against him while three abstained. The new cabinet should be formed within a month. The six Bosnian parties, which passed the bar following the October 2010 vote, finally clinched a deal on the new state-level government at the end of last year. The new cabinet will mirror Bosnias ethnic division into a Serb and a Muslim-Croat dominated parts. The two parts have their own cabinets and are linked by weak state-level institutions. The state-level government, however, is in charge of Bosnias foreign policy and is the countrys only eligible body to negotiate international financing. Thus, its absence has frozen for over a year the Balkan countrys agreed funds with the IMF and the World Bank, as well as blocked its EU integration process. Bevanda was nominated for prime minister by the Bosnian Croat party HDZ. The new cabinet will consist of ten ministries four of them will be controlled by Bosnian Muslims, while Bosnian Serb and Croat parties will control three each. Bevanda was in charge of Bosnias Muslim-Croat Federation finance ministry between 2006 and 2010.

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