Bosnian trade unions will invest additional efforts to return ownership rights to their properties in Croatia with the help of Croatia’s competent institutions, the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SSSBiH) said.

The issue of properties owned by Bosnian companies located in Croatia came up after Croatian Parliament passed a law on the management of state-owned property in May. The new law allowed Croatian government to rent out properties which were inherited by companies from countries formed after of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

Bosnian companies own nearly 200 properties along Croatia’s Adriatic coastline which they acquired during the Yugoslav era, including a number of hotels, petrol stations, and office buildings.

A bilateral law on how such property would be distributed came into force in 2004, but since then, very few property cases have been resolved between Bosnia and Croatia.

Bosnian experts fear that after Croatia passed its new law, Bosnia could lose those properties for good.

“It is a fact that these properties were built and sold at a time when it was common for trade unions to organise vacations for their members, and that this property is unions’ property,” SSSBiH said, explaining that it attempted to register this property under its name and return it to its rightful owners multiple times, but failed to do so until now.

There are many reasons for this failure, SSSBiH said, explaining that there were a number of substantial changes in its organisational structure since 1954, as well as that they do not have complete documentation related to the issue, as a result of the 1991-95 war in Bosnia.

SSSBiH emphasised that a significant obstacle in tackling the problem of property restitution is the lack of financial resources.

“Apart from this, it must be pointed out that since before the war began, a union for vacation and recreation was formed, which dealt with issues regarding union property and which managed properties located in Croatia,” SSSBiH said, adding it will continue its efforts to prove that the property still belongs to Bosnian companies, and to have it registered under its name.

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