The Central European  Initiative – CEI represents the regional forum for co-operation and consultations between the member countries. This Initiative developed in 1989, first as the regional forum of four, at that time, neighbouring countries– Italy, Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia. The Initiative is one of the oldest regional initiatives, which goal was to open regional dialogue and connect the West European developed countries (Italy and Austria) with the East European ones (Hungary and Yugoslavia), ease their transition  and bring them closer to the West European structures. The number of forum members had been increasing and the forum expanded mainly to the East and South Eastern Europe. In 2000, when SR Yugoslavia of that time  joined, it reached the number of 17 member states. Members of the forum nowdays are all countries formed at the ex Yugoslavia region, as well as all members of the Eastern block, including Albania and the three former Soviet Republics: Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus.

Bosnia and Herzegovina became the member of the Central European Initiative in 1992, together with Slovenia and Croatia. 

CEI is virtually a part of the European integration process, which cooperates with European organizations and institutions, in the first place the EU, Council of Europe and OSCE, as well as other organizations for regional co-operation. CEI co-operates with UN as well as with other relevant international organizations, UNECE, OECD and international financial institutions, especially EBRD.

CEI`s strategic goals are:

-cohezition and unification of Europe, without separation line to disjoin the same values,
-to focus on co-operation inside CEI, especially on providing help in strengthening less developed member countries that need to speed up their development and reconstruction processes.

Cooperation within CEI includes, amongst other, the following:

• Consultations on political issues of common interest
• Economic and technical co-operation
• Development of infrastructure related to transport, power, telecommunication, agriculture
• Strengthening democratic institutions and monitoring human rights of national minorities as well as humanitarian issues
• Protection of human environment
• Cooperation in the sphere of science and technology, media, culture, education, exchange of young people, tourism
• Over border and international co-operation

CEI promotes co-operation with NGOs, professional associations, academic associations and other institutions.

Organization, structure and form of CEI operation

CEI operates in a flexible way through several bodies:

1. Governmental dimension of CEI countries includes the following:
   • Meetings of the Heads of States  (CEI summit),
   • Meetings of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs (MFA Meeting),
   • Meetings of political Heads of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the member states (PoD Meeting),
   • Committees of National Co-ordinators  (CNC),
   • Working groups (task forces, expert groups, project groups),
   • Executive Secretariat (CEI- ES),
   • Secretariat for CEI projects with EBRD.

1. Parliamentary dimension of CEI functiones in line with the Charter and includes:
   • Conference of the Parliaments` Presidents,
   • Parliamentry Assemblies,
   • Parliamentary Committees,
   • Working groups (ad hoc committees).

1. Economic dimension of CEI includes:
   • Annual conference of the Central European Chambers of Commerce Initiative (CECCI),
   • ECCI Secretariat.

CEI summit, the meeting of the Heads of member states, is held once a year, in the autmn, usually November. The following is decided upon at these meetings:

• Principles and goals of CEI,
• Amendments to the CEI Charter,
• Political and economic co-operation within the Initiatiatve, including approval of the action plan,
• Suspension of membership,
• Approval of the annual report by the General Director of the Executive Secretariat of  CEI

Meetings of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs are held once per year, usually in spring. Specific co-operation issues are decided upon at these meetings, such as:

• Political co-operation,
• Participation in CEI activities,
• Organizational structure, spheres and ways of cooperation,
• Issues that relate to establishing operational structure of working groups,
• Pattern of annual contribution, annual budget, scales of CEI`s contribution to the cooperation fund,
• Appointment and release of CEI`s General Director of the Executive Secretariat and his/her Deputy.

Meetings of political directors of the member states` Ministries of Foreign Affairs are, by the rule, held at least once per year, in Rome. Additional meetings may be held ad hoc, depending on the requirements and specific sitautions.

Committees of National Coordinators (CNC) represent key bodies, responsible for managing CEI co-operation and implementation of CEI programs through appropriate structures. Committees of National Coordinators are held on regular basis, in principle, once per month, to discuss co-ordination of co-operation within different CEI bodies, as well relations with other international organizations.

CNC help CEI`s Executive Secretariat to prepare documents that are going to be approved on the CEI summit or meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs. CNC can discuss activities of CEI working groups and instruct them. In consultations with the General Director of CEI Executive Secretariat, CNC may decide on the CEI structure and its personnel.

Presidency in CEI is annualy rotated, by alphabet order and it starts with a calendar year. Presiding country is supported both by previous and future presiding entities that make the Three of CEI, represent it in certain cases.
The President of CEI organizes meetings of the Heads of Governments, Ministers of Foreign Affairs, political directors and CNC. CNC meetings can be organized in other countries.

Each member country is responsible to finance costs of own delegations, related to CEI activities. As a rule, costs of organization of meetings are settled by the host country.

Political dimension of CEI activities is basically always directed to strengthening the stability in the region of the Central and Eastern Europe. This is carried out through political dialogue on opened issues and by strengthening mutual trust and understanding as well as bringing member countries closer to each other. Political decisions made by CEI are presented in different political declarations on up-to-date issues. In principle, these issues are already discussed by other, much more influencing forums, such as OSCE, UN or the EU, due to which the effect of CEI`s political influence on the repute is less and unconvincing. However, it does not mean that participation of this forum in political activities has no significance for each of the countries. The absence of performance of this Initiative would in any case have had negative effects on the political interests. CEI decides and makes decisions by having concensus of all participants, which implies that the very active position and participation in all meetings ensures favourable position to the country within the Initiative.

Other aspect of CEI activities- specific co-operation and financial support in different spheres depends, in the first place, on limited funds that CEI, as the regional Initiative, is disposing with, and on the other hand, on concrete activities and initiatives of each member country, as well as its preparedness to offer high-quality and acceptable projects, which realization calls for support. CEI does not have own big budget to finance projects, due to which financial support is limited to the so called technical aid (feasibility studies, pilot projects, seminars, etc). Bigger financial support to CEI projects is provided through recommendations and by including other donors or international financial institutions, most frequently EBRD. In that sense, CEI developed special methodology to prepare projects for lending (''CEI Project Opportunity Methodology'' or ''Project Opportunity Pipeline'').

Previous experiances prove that BIH participation in this aspect of co-operation is quite limited, and it can be seen as the proof of our weakness or inactivity to understand, prepare and offer sufficient number of high-quality competitive programs, which would then be supported.

Within the goal defined as the strenghtening of co-operation between member countries, CEI gives advantage to initiatives that stimulate neighbourly co-operation, human dimension, tourisam development and co-operation in terms of science and technology, cultural co-operation, civil protection as well as joint approach in combating terrorism, organized crime, drugs and weapons smuggling.

Second goal includes stimulation of participation of member countries in the process of the European integration, with five areas: integration strategy, traffic, human environment, trade liberalization and training. Examples of support provided to these programs, within this goal are: support to Paneuropean Corridors V & VIII, the Danube River protection program and other. Support in reconstructing power supply sector as well as the Sarajevo Airport represents highlighted example of funding programs from BiH, in connection to this sphere. Educational program proposed by the NGO from Sarajevo, should be mentioned here, too, as it is connected to the upcoming elections.

Third goal – support to economic transformation of CEI countries in transition, involves agriculture, small and medium enterprises and trainings. Specific programs to be highlighted within this framework are: providing consulting services to small and medium enterprises (Busines Advisory Service – BAS), with BiH participation, CEINET networking on the Internet and other. CEI provided support within this program to Croatia, BiH, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Macedonia, in total amount of EUR 3,801,000, whereas other donors provided  EUR 9,363,500 in the period from 1998 to 2004.

The position of BiH within the Initiative

Bosnia and Herzegovina has been present in CEI since 1992. It chaired the Initiative in 1997.  After the war, BiH was in the very centre of specific programs and has been significantly supported in terms of reconstruction of public sector, traffic and power infrastructure. CEI has been regulary monitoring improvements in democratic development of BiH, through political documents and has been regulary valuing efforts made to build up a civilized society and fulfil conditions required to join the Euro-Atlantic integration processes.

A) Financing the activities of CEI
 
Each member country settles own costs of participation in CEI activities, political meetings at the highest level, meetings of Ministers and political heads and national co-ordinators. However, participants in round tables, expert groups and other groups settle costs on their own, i.e. institutions that delegated them.

The CEI Secretariat in Trieste is being financed from contributions of the Initiative`s members. Bosnia and Herzegovina is paying an annual contribution, the lowest in the group, 1% out of total costs, which amounted to EUR 3,000 in last years.

B) Financing projects in BiH by CEI

It has already been stressed out that CEI is not disposing with its own, significant funds. Therefore, participation of CEI with its funds in partial funding of projects, quite often represents initial funding, which purpose is to provide for the feasibility studies and participation of other financial institutions.

According to available data in CEI documentation of the Stability Pact Department and the Regional Initiative, CEI was participated in financing the following projects in BiH.:

No	Year	Project	CEI contribution in EUR	EBRD  contribution in EUR	Total costs of project in EUR
1.	1997	Urgent reconstruction of power supply system I part	76,218
2.	1997	Urgent reconstruction of power supply system II part	133,581	14,065,946	238,107,000
3.	1998	Screening Project for BiH	62,683
4.	1998	Sarajevo Airport- Master plan- Study	167,412
5.	1999	Sarajevo Airport – Training and equipment	30,000
6.	1999	Sarajevo Airport - Illumination and equipment	410,000	25,962,000