Following his visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina in November, State Secretary Jörg Asmussen met with Mirko Šarović, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of Bosnia Herzegovina, when he paid a return visit to the Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs on 17 December 2015.
Building on their talks in Sarajevo, their discussions focused on legal migration, including the new rules of the German Government for citizens of the Western Balkan countries wanting to take up employment in Germany. State Secretary Asmussen stressed that the new rules, which will come into force in January 2016, will form the legal basis for the future cooperation between the two countries on legal migration. He also explained that it was not possible to expand the current instruments, such as the 1995 contract work agreement.
State Secretary Asmussen invited Bosnia and Herzegovina to actively help shape future cooperation during the conference on the new rules for the six countries of the Western Balkans, which the Federal Employment Agency will be hosting in February 2016. He praised the ongoing fruitful cooperation between the Public Employment Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Federal Employment Agency and emphasised that the Federal Employment Agency was very interested in continued close collaboration.
Minister Šarović welcomed the newly created gateways to the German labour market and stressed how important they were for Bosnia and Herzgovina. He promised the active involvement of the Public Employment Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina.