European Union (EU) leaders will discuss EU enlargement policy, including the latest developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine and Moldova, at the European Council meeting on Thursday and Friday, March 21 and 22, the European Council’s official website announced.
As they remind, at their meeting in December 2023, EU leaders gave the green light to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, after the countries take the relevant steps listed in the Commission’s report on enlargement from November 8 last year.
The leaders also expressed their readiness to open access to negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina, once the necessary compliance with membership criteria is achieved. For this purpose, they invited the Commission to report to the Council on progress no later than March of this year.
Last week, the European Commission recommended the Council to open accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, assessed that BiH has made, as she said, impressive steps in European integration since it received candidate status in December 2022.
“More progress has been made in just over a year than previously in ten years. First, BiH is now fully aligned with our foreign and security policy, which is crucial in these times of geopolitical turmoil. Second, the country has adopted important laws such as the on the prevention of conflicts of interest, which has been stalled for seven years, and the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism,” said Ursula von der Leyen.
She pointed out that the EU has changed its approach towards the Western Balkans in recent years.
“We realized that it is not enough to wait for the Western Balkans to come closer to us, that it is not enough to say that the door is open. We must also take responsibility and support their path towards our Union in every possible way,” said the President of the Commission.
