In the first six months of 2021, several regulations were adopted in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), and at the cantonal level, as well as initiatives and dialogue of social partners in the Economic and Social Council for the territory of FBiH on regulations setting the lowest salary in the FBiH, in accordance with Art. 78 of the Labor Law, and the materials of the proposed legal solutions in FBiH were considered.
In the FBiH, the following laws were passed in the first six months:
– Law on Amendments to the Law on Contributions and Income Taxes
– Law on Amendments to the Law on Internal Payment System
– Law on Accounting and Auditing in the FBiH
– Law on Amendments to the Law on Financial Consolidation of Companies in the FBiH
– Law on Amendments to the Law on Default Interest Rate on Public Revenues
– Law on peaceful settlement of labor disputes.
The Government of the FBiH has adopted the Decree on Amendments to the Decree on the Procedure for Recruitment in the Public Sector in the FBiH.
Also, the Government of the FBiH passed the Decision on prescribing the measure of direct price control by determining the maximum amount of margins on petroleum products and the Decision on prescribing the measure of direct price control by determining the maximum amount of margins for certain food and other products.
As part of the reform of labor and social legislation in the FBiH, certain regulations have been adopted in recent years. One of the most important is the long-awaited Law on Occupational Safety, which entered into force on November 7, 2020. In 2021, based on this Law, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Policy passed five regulations in the first six months, as follows:
- Rulebook on the conditions that must be met by authorized organizations to perform professional activities in the field of occupational safety
- Rulebook on the manner, procedure and deadlines for performing periodic inspections and tests in the field of occupational safety
- Risk assessment rules
- Rulebook on the procedure for reducing working hours in jobs with increased risk
- Rulebook on the manner and conditions of performing occupational safety work by employer
The FBiH Ministry of Finance has established the Basis for the calculation of contributions of certain taxpayers for 2021, which were published in the “Official Gazette of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
Also, the Ministry of Finance has adopted several ordinances, as follows:
- Rulebook amending the Ordinance on the method of calculating and paying contributions,
- Rulebook on amendments to the Ordinance on procedures for forced collection of tax liabilities,
- Rulebook on fiscal systems and Rulebook amending the Rulebook on fiscal documents,
- Rulebook on Amendments to the Rulebook on the Manner of Payment, Affiliation and Distribution of Public Revenues in the FBiH
- Rulebook on the manner and conditions of issuing and revoking licenses to certified auditors and auditing companies,
- Rulebook on the content and manner of keeping the register of qualified persons and registers of legal entities and entrepreneurs that provide bookkeeping and accounting services,
- Rulebook on the application of the Income Tax Act.
In the past six months, unions have insisted on setting the lowest wage in the FBiH. The Federation is the only one that does not have a regulation that determines the lowest (minimum wage), unlike the Republika Srpska, which has determined the minimum wage twice since the new year.
The minimum wage will be the subject of the Economic and Social Council (ESC) debate in mid-July 2021. Branch unions have announced a strike in September if demands for an urgent minimum wage and collective bargaining are not met.
The ESC has been discussing several regulations over the past few months. The Law on Employees’ Council (agreed between the Trade Union and Association of Employers of FBiH) and the Law on Representativeness of Trade Unions and Employers’ Associations of the FBiH are important for workers and trade unions, and it is difficult to find a compromise due to the fact that the Government of the FBiH prefers to organize unions at the professional level, which is a threat that there will be further fragmentation of unions, with the aim of complete destabilization of the trade union movement in the FBiH. The unions (16 branches) strongly condemned the intention of the Government of BiH to put the Draft Law on Representativeness in the urgent procedure and pointed out that no consensus of the social partners was reached, which is a precondition for further referral of the law to the procedure.
In mid-May 2021, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Policy sent amendments to the Law on Pension and Disability Insurance to the parliamentary procedure.
Full text of the Information on laws and other regulations in the period from January 1 – June 20, 2021 can be found HERE.
