EU authorizes opening of accession negotiations with Bosnia-Herzegovina

The leaders of the European Union countries authorized, on Thursday, the opening of accession negotiations with Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, these will only begin once a certain number of reforms have been carried out by the Balkan country.

“Congratulations! Your place is in our European family. Today’s decision is a key step on your path to the EU. Now the difficult work must continue,” European Council President Charles Michel announced on X.

Latest EU movement towards its enlargement

This decision by the Twenty-Seven, meeting at a summit in Brussels, is the latest in a movement towards EU enlargement which has gained strength since the start of War in Ukraine.

“Based on the Commission’s recommendation of 12 March 2024, the European Council decides to open accession negotiations with Bosnia-Herzegovina,” reads the joint declaration adopted by the leaders. The declaration invites “the Commission to prepare the negotiation framework with a view to its adoption by the Council when all the appropriate measures set out in the Commission recommendation of October 12, 2022 have been taken”. Discussions can only begin after the approval of all the governments of the member states for this negotiating framework.

Bosnia-Herzegovina, a country of 3.5 million inhabitants, obtained candidate status in 2022 after the favourable opinion of the Commission, which had identified fourteen “essential priorities” for reforms. These consist in particular of improving the functioning of central institutions, as well as strengthening the rule of law and fundamental rights, and the fight against corruption and organized crime in this country.

Secessionist threats in the country

Bosnia recently opened negotiations for a cooperation agreement with Frontex, the European border guard agency. In addition, its Parliament adopted a law against money laundering required by Brussels as well as a law on the prevention of conflicts of interest in institutions. However, there is still no agreement on the reform of the courts and on the electoral law.

Bosnia remains divided, after the intercommunal conflict which devastated this former Yugoslav Republic, leaving more than 100,000 dead. Nearly thirty years after the Dayton Accords which ended this conflict in 1995, the country is divided into two: a Serbian entity, the Republika Srpska (RS), regularly accused of playing into the hands of Moscow in the region, and a Croat-Bosnian region, whose leaders want the country to join NATO. The country is facing a political crisis due to secessionist threats from Bosnian Serbs.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, recommended in March the opening of accession negotiations with this country, welcoming its “impressive progress”. She stressed that it was now “fully aligned” with the EU’s foreign and security policy, “which is crucial in these geopolitically troubled times”.

The opening of negotiations is a step in a process which generally takes many years before accession.

Such accession negotiations have also been opened with Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia.