Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina Zoran Tegeltija participated via video link in the Tirana Digital Economic Forum, the Council of Ministers of B&H announced.
He addressed a panel entitled "The EU and the Western Balkans: Fulfilling a Long-awaited Promise", attended by Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, Prime Minister of the North Macedonia Zoran Zaev and EU Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi.
Tegeltija expressed the disappointment of all B&H citizens in the global system of vaccine procurement, which showed an unjustifiably high level of inefficiency, saying that he believes that procurement through the system with the EU will work.
-We are facing great challenges in 2021. The first is how to successfully carry out vaccination in our countries, and the second is how to mitigate the economic consequences of COVID-19 through investments in both the public and private sectors, which still has a strong impact on our economies- said Tegeltija.
He thanked the Government of Serbia, Prime Minister Ana Brnabić and the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, for their help to Bosnia and Herzegovina and some other countries in the region when it comes to supply of vaccines. Chairman Tegeltija said that another amount of vaccines, which were donated by the Government of Serbia, is coming to B&H today.
-It is disappointing for us that vaccines, which are global good, have grown into goods that are procured on the market under very unfair conditions. Maybe we from a small country like B&H can hardly understand that, but we think that we had to do much more in that regard- said Chairman Tegeltija.
Chairman Tegeltija emphasized the importance of investments and realization of infrastructure projects with the aim of connecting B&H with its neighbors.
-We are ready to do everything to make regional cooperation as successful as possible and to show that the region of the Western Balkans belongs to Europe both economically and in any other way- concluded the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina.