SARAJEVO, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- The European Union is still waiting for Bosnia and Herzegovina's answers to additional European Commission questions and candidate status of BiH depends on these answers, an EU lawmaker said here Thursday.
Cristian Dan Preda, Standing Rapporteur for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the European Parliament, urged BiH authorities to answer the additional questions as soon as possible, following his meeting with two members of BiH's Presidency, Sefik Dzaferovic and Zeljko Komsic.
"I remind you that the additional questions were sent in June 2018, and now, it is January 2019. I would say that this is taking a long time. I hope you will solve this question first," Preda told reporters.
He explained that it is of great importance to answer the questions in order to get the European Commission's opinion on candidate status.
Preda also highlighted that, apart from not answering on the additional questions, BiH authorities failed to appoint parliamentarians to work with their counterparts from the European Union.
"We have adopted a report on BiH, but no joint committee has yet been established which would equally comprise parliamentarians from BiH and the EU, which would enable a consolidated, joint work on the European path of BiH," Preda explained.
"My message is to convince your parliamentarians to work with the European parliamentarians," he said.
Dzaferovic specified that currently, the most urgent issue in BiH is to answer the additional questions.
"I expect this process to be completed in the following days. Our aim is to get the candidate status as soon as possible," Dzaferovic said.
On Feb. 28 2018, the former Chairman of BiH Presidency Dragan Covic officially handed the answered EU accession questionnaire to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
In June, the European Commission sent additional 655 questions out of which 106 questions refer to political criteria, 43 regarding social politics employment, 36 questions regarding education, and another 33 questions regarding economy.
