{"id":346544,"date":"2024-03-19T14:42:46","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T13:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/03\/19\/negoziati-adesione-bosnia-ue-italia\/"},"modified":"2024-03-22T19:34:18","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T18:34:18","slug":"a-group-of-7-eu-countries-calls-for-immediate-opening-of-accession-negotiations-with-bosnia-and-herzegovina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/03\/19\/a-group-of-7-eu-countries-calls-for-immediate-opening-of-accession-negotiations-with-bosnia-and-herzegovina\/","title":{"rendered":"A group of 7 EU countries calls for immediate opening of accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – A quarter of EU member states are moving decisively to support Bosnia and Herzegovina on its path toward the European Union, just days before a European Council meeting that could be the last call for Sarajevo’s ambitions to speed up the accession process<\/strong>. For the occasion, the group Friends of the Western Balkans, comprising the seven most open-minded member states for the immediate integration of the Balkan countries of the region — Italy, Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Slovakia, and Slovenia —<\/strong> is back on the move. “We believe it is essential to seize the momentum and the current window of opportunity and decide to open accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina<\/strong>.” reads a letter–obtained by Eunews<\/em>–sent by the respective foreign ministers (Raffaele Fitto<\/strong> for Italy) to the Belgian rotating presidency of the EU Council, their 20 other colleagues, and the Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Oliv\u00e9r V\u00e1rhelyi<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Bosnia<\/a>The letter came just days after the\u00a0European Commission recommendation<\/a> to open accession negotiations with Sarajevo, given its “impressive steps towards us” (words of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong> before the Strasbourg hemicycle) and the resulting\u00a0achievement of the required levels of compliance with membership criteria. “Bosnia and Herzegovina has achieved more substantial reforms in recent weeks and months than in previous years,<\/strong> and work on further reforms is ongoing,” the seven ministers stressed, recalling the decision<\/a> taken during the December European Council to start accession negotiations “once the necessary degree of compliance with the accession criteria has been achieved.” Examples of progress are evident, the letter<\/strong> reports: the adoption of amendments to the Law on the Ombudsman, Freedom of Information and Foreigners, the adjustment of the Law on the Supreme Judicial Council, and – more recently – the adoption of the Law against Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, Conflict of Interest and amendments to the Civil Service Law, as well as the green light for negotiations on the status agreement with Frontex and the EU Integration Program.<\/p>\n

A green light at the Council meeting scheduled for Thursday and Friday (March 21-22) would allow Bosnia and Herzegovina to “set out firmly on the path to the European Union.” If not, “it would weaken the role of the EU in the Western Balkans and send a negative message to the entire region<\/strong>, to which we promised that its future lies within the EU more than 20 years ago,” warn the Friends of the Western Balkans. While waiting for\u00a0the latest draft of the EU leaders’ summit conclusions, for now, Chapter 4 on ‘Enlargement and Reforms’ still seems to be empty, “pending the text.” But the warning had already come during von der Leyen’s\u00a0end-of-January trip<\/a>\u00a0to Sarajevo with the prime ministers of Croatia, Andrej Plenkovi\u0107<\/strong>, and of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte<\/strong>. “After March, the year will be full of issues such as elections and the new configuration of the Parliament and the Commission,” the number one Union executive had said, confirming the even more explicit words of Croatian Prime Minister Plenkovi\u0107: “If we miss the opportunity in March, the rest of the year will be lost, and it will almost certainly end in January 2025<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s EU accession path<\/h3>\n

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s journey towards the European Union began\u00a0on February 15, 2016, with the official submission of its membership application<\/strong>. For over\u00a0six years, no positive response came from the EU institutions \u00a0because of the country’s near-disastrous situation on the base conditions (Copenaghen criteria<\/a>) for being considered a formal candidate. However, over the past two years, signs of confidence have intensified, especially from the EU executive and its president also considering the risks of Russian destabilization<\/strong> of a very delicate country and region in the heart of Europe.\u00a0\"Allargamento<\/a><\/p>\n

At the presentation of the 2022 Enlargement Package,\u00a0the Commission\u00a0recommended to the Council<\/strong> to grant Bosnia and Herzegovina candidate status for EU membership, with\u00a0a particularly passionate speech in Sarajevo by von der Leyen during her trip to the Balkan capitals to announce Brussels’ energetic\u00a0support. After assessing the Commission’s opinion, the summit of EU leaders on December 15, 2022,\u00a0gave the green light to grant Bosnia and Herzegovina the status of candidate country for EU membership<\/strong> while emphasizing the need to implement crucial\u00a0reforms in the areas of rule of law, fundamental rights, strengthening of democratic institutions, and public administration.<\/p>\n

\n

After becoming the eighth candidate country for accession in the EU enlargement process, Bosnia and Herzegovina has continued to push on its path to the Union. Thanks to the (albeit limited) progress made by Brussels in the 2023\u00a0Enlargement Package,\u00a0the EU Commission decided to include a recommendation to the European Council to launch accession negotiations for Sarajevo “once the necessary degree of compliance with the accession criteria has been achieved.”<\/strong> In other words, the recommendation is there, but with a foregone conclusion that the leaders’ summit response would await new positive news on the front of the 14 priorities outlined by the Commission (of which only two\u00a0completed).\u00a0 That’s how it went<\/a>\u00a0at the last European Council in December, with the decision to start negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina without indicating an actual\u00a0start date<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Republika Srpska hurdle<\/h3>\n

Yet the path of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s rapprochement with the Union is made particularly difficult by the president of Republika Srpska\u00a0Milorad Dodik<\/strong>, who has championed a secessionist project\u00a0<\/strong>since October 2021. The goal is to remove the region\u00a0from central state control in such crucial\u00a0areas as the military, tax system, and\u00a0judiciary, more than 20 years after the end of the ethnic war in Bosnia and Herzegovina<\/strong>. The European Parliament has called for\u00a0economic sanctions.\u00a0After the harsh condemnation of secessionist attempts by the Serb-majority entity in Bosnia (with a bill to establish an autonomous High Judicial Council), Bosnian leaders gathered in Brussels in mid-June 2022 to sign\u00a0a charter\u00a0for stability and peace focused primarily on electoral and constitutional reforms in the Balkan country<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Dodik<\/a>
Da sinistra: Republika Srpska President, Milorad Dodik, and Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin at\u00a0the Kremlin on May 23, 2023 (credits: Alexey Filippov \/ Sputnik \/ Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, concerns have become increasingly realistic since late March 2023, when the government of the Bosnian Serb entity presented a draft law to establish a registry of foreign-funded associations and foundations.\u00a0The so-called law on ‘foreign agents’\u00a0<\/span>is similar to the one adopted by Moscow in December 2022\u00a0<\/strong>and was approved in late September by the\u00a0Banja Luka\u00a0National Assembly<\/span>. In parallel, the process of adopting amendments to the Criminal Code reintroducing criminal penalties for defamation<\/strong> has also advanced. Following the proposal – also in late March – the law entered into force on Aug. 18 and now provides for fines of 5,000 to 20,000 Bosnian marks (2,550 to 10,200 euros) if the defamation occurs “through the press, radio, television, or other public media, during a public meeting, or otherwise.” The European External Action Service (EEAS) and the EU delegation in Sarajevo attacked Banja Luka, highlighting that the two laws “have <\/strong>had a frightening effect on freedom of speech in Republika Srpska<\/strong>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The secessionist provocations came hand in hand with the issue of the relationship with Russia after the\u00a0invasion of Ukraine. As early as September 20, 2022, Dodik\u00a0traveled to Moscow for a bilateral meeting with Putin after\u00a0openly provoking Western partners about the illegal annexation of Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions. Provocations that continued at the beginning of January 2023 with the conferral to\u00a0the Russian autocrat the Order of Republika Srpska<\/strong> (the highest honor of the Serb-majority entity in the Balkan country) – in recognition of “patriotic concern and love” toward Banja Luka’s demands – on the occasion of the Republika Srpska National Day, an unconstitutional holiday under Bosnian law. As if that were not enough, in May 2023, Dodik went on a second trip to Moscow, while in Brussels, misgivings emerged about the Union’s failure to respond with sanctions. EU sources revealed to Eunews<\/em> that a framework of restrictive measures has existed for some time now ready to be implemented<\/strong>, but Viktor Orb\u00e1n of Hungary does not allow the green light<\/strong>. Any such foreign policy action requires unanimity in the Council.<\/p>\n

\n

Find more insights on the Balkan region in the BarBalkans newsletter<\/a> hosted by Eunews<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

European Foreign Affairs ministers from Italy, Austria, Croatia, Greece, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia meeting in the Friends of the Western Balkans group sent a letter calling for “seizing the momentum and the current window of opportunity” and not risking “weakening the Union’s role” in the entire region<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5647,"featured_media":266599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[26007,27318,26492,25836,27335,25834,27317],"class_list":["post-346544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-accession-ue-bosnia-en","tag-bosnia-and","tag-bosnia-ed-erzegovina-en","tag-eu-enlargement-en","tag-council-en","tag-european-council-en","tag-friends-of-western-balkans-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346544"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347354,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346544\/revisions\/347354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}