EU member states’ foreign ministers will meet for a Council meeting on Tuesday 20 September, where they are expected to ask the European Commission to provide an assessment of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s request to join the European Union.
In practice, this means that the ministers will use a conclusions document to invite the Commission to prepare around 2,000 questions to be submitted to the Bosnian authorities. This process is expected to last a year or two, explained a high-ranking European official. The Council will then use this questionnaire to decide whether to grant the country official candidate status. Sarajevo officially lodged its request to join the EU on 15 February 2016 (see EUROPE 11490/865).
EU calls for "constructive" dialogue on referendum On Saturday 17 September, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s constitutional court decided to adopt a provisional measure temporarily suspending a referedendum on the Serb Republic of Bosnia. The referendum, planned for 25 September, is about keeping the Serb Republic’s Day (9 January), an idea viewed as discriminatory by non-Serb communities.
In a joint press release, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini and Enlargement Negotiations Commissioner Johannes Hahn urged Bosnia-Herzegovina’s government "to to resolve this issue and to respect the rule of law through the established legal processes and the existing constitutional framework, and through constructive dialogue. All parties need to abstain from acts which could escalate the situation". This appeal seems to have fallen on deaf ears because the prime minister of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia, Željka Cvijanović, has announced that the referendum will take place.
In their press release, Mogherini and Hahn say: "Bosnia and Herzegovina has embarked on an agenda of reforms that are necessary to cope with the economic and social challenges the country is facing and which are key to move forward on the European path. The issue of the Republika Srpska Day should not and must not distract Bosnia-Herzegovina from this crucial work". (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)