The Mayor of Sarajevo Ivo Komšić, the Chairman of the City Council, Sabahudin Delalić and Deputy Mayor Ranko Čović yesterday organized a reception for a large delegation from Denmark leaded by the Mayor of Vejle Arne Sigtenbjerggaard.
Komšić briefed the guests on the current situation of the City of Sarajevo and its responsibilities.
“The situation today is unusual and strange. Sarajevo is now an institution that is outside the usual hierarchy of state institutions. We are under the constitution of the Sarajevo Canton, and municipalities that are part of the City Council do not subordinate by us. Likewise Canton that formed and funds us is not our superior”, explained Komšić.
He added that Sarajevo deserves and must have a law on the capital city of the state and the law on the capital of FB&H.
“The adoption of these laws would strengthen the position of Sarajevo as the political, administrative, cultural, sportive, economic, educational and scientific center in FB&H and in B&H as state”, said Komšić.
Sigtenbjerggaard thanked for the reception and in order to give information about Danish history he pointed out that Denmark, until recently, was divided into 13 districts and 270 municipalities.
“From 1st January 2007 in Denmark is implemented the reform of the administrative division of the country, where the former districts are replaced with five new regions and number of municipalities is reduced to 98”, stressed Sigtenbjerggaard adding that Vejle has collaboration with a lot of countries.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Serbia are three Balkan countries with which the Danish city cooperates for a long time, particularly in the sector of culture.
Sigtenbjerggaard presented the project of economic and cultural cooperation between the Balkans and Denmark, called “Program Bridge”.
“The objective of this program is to develop a common regional platform and cooperation with a focus on the development of many small and medium enterprises in the food industry. The creation of this platform in whose framework would be the individual companies from Denmark and the Balkans would help to establish mutual contacts, strengthening of the collaboration, jointly resources and the development of professionalism”, said Sigtenbjerggaard.
Komšić added that Denmark is an honest and proven friend of Sarajevo and B&H and this kind of cooperation between Sarajevo and Vejle will greatly improve the economic situation of B&H.
At the end of the meeting, there has been an invitation to the mayor of Sarajevo and his associates that as soon as possible to visit officially the Municipality of Vejle, was announced by the City of Sarajevo.