European Union leaders agreed to open membership talks with Bosnia-Herzegovina as the bloc seeks to pull a divided Western Balkan country closer into its orbit to counter growing Russian influence, according to Bloomberg.
The move is a win for a nation still fragmented since the Balkan wars of the 1990s that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia. It’s the latest sign that the EU is trying to revive a stalled enlargement process as it faces Moscow’s war-making in Ukraine and an encroaching China.
“It wasn’t easy to reach consensus,” Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic told reporters at the summit meeting in Brussels late Thursday. “But this decision is crucial for Bosnia’s existence and its territorial integrity.”
Bosnia comprises of two antagonistic entities, Serb-dominated Republika Srpska and a Muslim-Croat federation, linked by a weak central government in Sarajevo. Serb leader Milorad Dodik, who counts Russian President Vladimir Putin as an ally, has long threatened to secede from the rest of the country and has opposed membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
EU leaders pushed ahead with an effort to weaken Russian influence in Bosnia and prevent the country from breaking apart. The move comes months after EU leaders agreed to open accession talks with Ukraine and Rebublic of Moldova.
Bosnia applied for EU membership in 2016 and was granted candidate status last year. It joins Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, and North Macedonia, which are all at various stages of entry negotiations.
Another Western Balkan nation, Kosovo, which unilaterally broke from Serbia in 2008, is recognized as a potential EU candidate, while Russia’s neighbor Georgia was granted candidate status in November.
So far the path to becoming an EU member has been arduous, requiring the unanimous agreement among EU leaders. Croatia, the last country to join, took 10 years to push through its application before it was formally accepted in 2013.
With 27 members already, an even bigger union would force the world’s largest trading bloc to change the way it takes decisions. The EU’s executive earlier this week proposed changes to its enlargement process that put the onus on gradual integration as a way to prepare countries including Ukraine, Republic of Moldova and the Western Balkans for their membership well ahead of accession.
Against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and geopolitical turmoil, a message must be sent that Bosnia is part of a free Europe, Christian Schmidt, the top international envoy to the country.
“The European Council has just decided to open accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Congratulations!”, EU Council president Charles Michel said, according to AP News.
“Your place is in our European family.”
Michel followed it up immediately with a warning that a lot of work remains to be done before the country can join.
“Now the hard work needs to continue so Bosnia and Herzegovina steadily advances, as your people want,” he said.
In the summit’s conclusions, leaders emphasized the need for Bosnia to keep on taking “all relevant steps set out” by the Commission that include economic, judicial and political reforms as well as better efforts to tackle corruption and money laundering, AP News Reports.