The second meeting of the Minority co-ordination board was held online on 15 December.

Saliha Đuderija from the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of Bosnia and Herzegovina reminded that the main aim of the board is to strengthen communication and co-ordination between relevant actors who are directly involved in the protection of the rights of national minorities resulting with concrete measures and in line with the Council of Europe’s Framework convention for the protection of national minorities and European charter for regional or minority languages.

Mirjana Marinkovic-Lepic from the Joint Committee on Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, stated that human rights, including those of national minorities, are not in the focus of the public discourse and of the media and this must be changed.

In the coming period, the co-ordination board members will be further empowered to respond to the issues linked to the promotion and protection of national minorities and will be jointly discussing and initiating concrete measures to improve the state of national minorities in the country.

Chaired by the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Minority Co-ordination board is composed of representatives from the Council of National Minorities on the state and entity levels, the Roma Board, Brčko Government, Councils of National Minorities from Sarajevo and Una Sana Canton, the Joint Committee on Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina and civil society organisations.

This meeting is organised in the framework of the joint European Union/Council of Europe action “Promotion of diversity and equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina” that is part of the programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”.