Brussels, 19/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 18 January, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn came across as sceptical regarding Bosnia-Herzegovina's application for succession being made in the course of January (see EUROPE 11469).
“Bosnia should make progress on at least two issues that are open before making its accession application. These are the fulfilment of the association and stabilisation agreement, and having a mechanism in place for working with the EU”, Hahn said on arriving at the Foreign Affairs Council. “These should be the main priorities”, he added.
Stating that the EU would be pleased to receive an accession application because “this is what it has worked on”, Hahn warned that the member states might well reply that there were criteria to be fulfilled. In his view, the criteria must be fulfilled in order to have “better credibility” when making the accession application and in order to obtain a “positive response from the European family”. “It's also important to keep the momentum for European integration in the country”, he added.
The president of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Council of Ministers, Denis Zvizdic, announced on 11 December that his country intended to make an application for EU accession “in one or two months' time” (see EUROPE 11451). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)