Bosnia seeks to gain EU membership candidate status, delivers letter to Union leaders

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Bosnia has applied for the adoption of EU membership candidate status in 2016, and in 2019 the European Commission has compiled a list of 14 priorities that must be met to respond positively to that requirement.

However, Bosnian authorities have done nothing since then, even because of disagreements and internal obstacles have not ensured the implementation of a later list “cut” of priorities, which was limited to adopting new laws on public procurement, avoiding conflicts of interest, writes Croatian news agency Index.

In the letter Tuesday, Komsic confirmed that all in BiH are aware of the problem, but said the circumstances have changed significantly since Russia's aggression against Ukraine, so that the EU must now consider previous requirements, especially since the country has shown willingness to harmonise foreign policy with that of the EU against Russia.

Allow me, on behalf of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with many other countries, to assess Russia's dangerous political and military activity as unacceptable, especially since such a policy is out of the range of international public law”, Komsic has written.

“Bosnia and Herzegovina's candidate status arrangement would create a new environment and give another confirmation of my country's instability and sovereignty, and then certainly there would be a range of positive effects on Bosnia's security and overall stability, and thus the entire Western Balkans”, said further in the Komspic letter.

Besides Kosovo, Bosnia is the only country in the Western Balkans that still does not have EU membership candidate status.