The leaders of the European Union (EU) countries authorized, on Thursday March 21, the opening of accession negotiations with Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, these will only begin once a certain number of reforms have been carried out by this 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”declared the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, on.
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 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, 2022.
“Based on the Commission’s recommendation of 12 March 2024, the European Council decides to open accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina”, we can read in the joint declaration adopted by the leaders. The latter invite “the Commission to prepare the negotiating framework with a view to its adoption by the Council [de l’UE] 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 and Herzegovina, a country of 3.5 million inhabitants, obtained candidate status in 2022 after the favorable 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
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 another Croat-Bosnian, 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 particularly emphasized that it was now “fully aligned” on EU 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.