Austria, Croatia and Slovenia want Brussels to start talks with Bosnia and Herzegovina about its admission to the European Union in the next two months, said Slovenian Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon after the annual regular meeting of the Danube countries held in Brdo near Kranj.
“Yes, absolutely. We have a common goal that talks between the EU and Bosnia and Herzegovina regarding accession start by the end of this year. We are working hard on that,” Fajon said in an address to journalists.
Bosnia and Herzegovina received the status of candidate for membership in December 2022, but negotiations have not yet started.
“Austria, Croatia and Slovenia are great friends of EU enlargement. We believe that now is the political moment for the EU to move towards a new enlargement, so that Europe becomes stronger and more united due to the geopolitical situation,” said Fajon. “However, it is a two-way street, both the EU and the candidate countries must be ready,” she added.
Austrian Foreign Minister Aleksander Schallenberg said that his country, Slovenia and Croatia are “good friends of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, but that they are “not the only ones”.
“We want the talks with Bosnia and Herzegovina to start,” noted Shallenberg.
Some are also advocating the opening of accession talks on membership with Ukraine and Moldova by the end of the year, seeking an accelerated procedure for those two countries. The Austrian minister believes that all candidate countries must have equal status.
“Our position is clear, we don’t want to have two classes of candidate countries. It would be a mistake to consider some more privileged than others,” said Schallnberg, while the countries of the “Western Balkans” have been standing in the waiting room for years.
Brussels granted candidate status to Ukraine, Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
“We are waiting for a decision on the opening of negotiations, which could happen by the end of the year,” said BiH Foreign Minister Elmedin Konaković. On Tuesday, in Brdo near Kranje, he met with the ministers of Slovenia, Austria, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, as well as with lower-ranking officials of other Danube countries.
They gathered for an annual meeting as part of the “EU Strategy for the Danube Region”, a political framework in which 14 countries cooperate in areas such as transport and environmental protection, and which serves candidate countries for closer cooperation with EU members.
Konaković told reporters after the meeting that “the decision to open negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina is of a political nature.”
“That would be a strong political message to the European forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and perhaps it would be a slap in the face to those pro-Russian and pro-Easterners who are not happy about our rapid progress,” he said.
Konaković noted that he is aware that his country is facing a “complex process” because, apart from the good will of some foreign ministers, it is necessary to convince other countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, with whom he is talking, Hina reports
