Bosnia and Herzegovina, having an extremely complex state system and at the same time being a developing country and economy in transition with a commitment to membership in the European Union, faces numerous challenges in adapting national legislation to the acquis communautaire. One of the key segments of the introduction of European standards is the establishment of an effective mechanism for the protection of competition in legislative and institutional terms. With the adoption of the Competition Law in 2005, which brings new solutions and is largely in line with the acquis, Bosnia and Herzegovina has made a significant step forward from the previous state of legal irregularity in this important segment. However, sixteen years of the enforcement of the BiH Competition Law have shown certain shortcomings regarding the particular solutions contained in it. These shortcomings concern the part of the provision of the law that regulates procedural issues, but also the functioning of the authority responsible for the protection of competition in Bosnia and Herzegovina and it can be assumed that these are obstructive elements in response to the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic. In order to follow the international trends, companies in BiH have entered into a process of business digitalization, which, however, being accelerated due to COVID-19 pandemic, has created many challenges before the Council of Competition of BiH as the authority responsible for public enforcement of the competition law. The aim of this paper is to question the extent to which COVID-19 pandemic has affected the work of the Council of Competition BiH, as well as to address some of the particular issues it has faced before the pandemic, including growing market concentration, growing power of digital platforms, protectionism, consumer vulnerability and consequent loss of public confidence. In order to meet the set research goals, the first part of the paper will present an analysis of the legal solutions in the context of the legal and institutional aspect of competition protection and will provide an overview of the situation regarding the digitalization of business operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The second part of the paper will provide an analysis of the work of the Council of Competition of BiH with special reference to the period of declaring the pandemic COVID-19.

As a country in transition and development, committed to the path towards membership in the European Union, Bosnia and Herzegovina encounters many challenges and obstacles in terms of fulfilling the tasks set before it. Quite complicated governmental and legal arrangement determines the pace of achieving the tasks that are prerequisites for the European Union membership status. By signing the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, Bosnia and Herzegovina assumed the obligation to gradually harmonise the national legislation with the EU legislation in the most important areas related to the internal market. In this context, one of highly important ones is the area of competition law. This paper analyses the quality of solutions provided by the normative and institutional framework of the market competition protection in Bosnia and Herzegovina by using the normative, historical, comparative, and content analysis methods. Basic features of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the EU are presented through a chronological summary of the integration process of BiH into the EU. The primary hypothesis of the paper is that recent legal solutions in the area of competition do not follow the current legal standards of the competition regulations in the EU. Analytical overview of annual reports on the operation of the Council of Competition as regulatory body in Bosnia and Herzegovina shows that competition is a typical example of the ‘crawling’ integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the EU. It is quite obvious that the lack of political will of the ruling structures slows the integration processes down. This area requires an efficient enforcement of competition regulations whose implementation enables the companies to act in line with the law. Without adequate and prompt amending of the Law on Competition and related by-laws there can be no positive evaluation of the European Commission concerning the progress of Bosnia and Herzegovina.