President of Croatia: If Ukraine gets EU candidate status, Bosnia should get it too

If Ukraine is to become an EU candidate, the Croatian government must set it as a condition that Bosnia and Herzegovina's candidacy is announced on the same day as Ukraine's, Zoran Milanovic said.

WORLD POLITICS JUNE 19. 2022 14:55

Bosnia is ahead of Ukraine in every respect

On Friday, the European Commission (EC) made a decision to grant EU candidate status to Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen announced. The EC president said that Kiev still had a lot of reforms to implement, but believed that the Ukrainians were determined to meet the requirements. Ukraine’s candidate status must be approved by all EU countries to take effect. The European Council comprising EU heads of state and government, will discuss the issue in the following days. France, Germany, Italy, and Romania have already announced their support for Ukraine’s candidate status, but there are countries that would tie it to conditions. The Croatian president said that if Ukraine can become a candidate country, Bosnia and Herzegovina should become one too.

„If Ukraine, in its current state – which I very much hope it will leave behind as soon as possible – can be granted candidacy, then the minimum expectation of Croatian foreign, security and national policy should be that Bosnia should also be granted EU candidacy,”

the Croatian news agency Hina quoted Zoran Milanovic as saying. The Croatian president also stated that he is not against Ukraine becoming a candidate country, but expressed his belief that Bosnia is ahead of Kiev in security policy and in all other aspects. He said that he did not know of a single economic, security or human factor why Sarajevo should not be granted candidate status once Ukraine has it.

Mr Milanovic is attending in the Prespa Forum in North Macedonia, together with other Western Balkans leaders. The aim of the meeting is to discuss the situation of each country in the integration process.

Photo: Serbian government

From the former Yugoslav republics, Croatia and Slovenia are now full members of the EU. Montenegro and Serbia have also started accession negotiations, although they are proceeding very slowly due to the coronavirus, the Russian-Ukrainian war and the EU’s internal reforms. North Macedonia is even worse off. The country has been a candidate for some time but has not even started accession negotiations as first the Greeks and now the Bulgarians have announced that they would veto it. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo have not even reached the stage of candidate status.

Photo: Facebook

Slovenia also proposes candidate status for Bosnia

The new Slovenian prime minister will also propose at the next EU summit that Bosnia and Herzegovina be granted candidate status, Robert Golob told the press in Brussels, where he met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel. Following the meetings, Mr Golob stressed: Slovenia welcomes the Commission’s proposal to grant candidate status to Ukraine, but added that Ljubljana would propose that Bosnia and Herzegovina become a candidate country at the same time.

Mr Golob said that he was aware that the proposal for Bosnia to join Ukraine and Moldova as a candidate country could be blocked by a single member state, but he was confident that reason would prevail in Brussels at the end of the day.

The premier confirmed that Slovenian President Borut Pahor had already written a letter to Charles Michel about Slovenia’s proposal. The document argues that pro-European forces have been strengthened in Sarajevo and that the country has made significant progress in adopting European norms. President Pahor called on the EU to support Sarajevo’s candidacy for EU membership without any further conditions and warned that a positive decision for Ukraine could leave the Balkan country, which has suffered from wars in the last years of the last century, outside the EU’s attention for a long time.

Some countries have been waiting for decades

There are currently five countries officially listed as EU candidates: Turkey (since 1999), North Macedonia (since 2005), Montenegro (since 2010), Serbia (since 2012) and Albania (since 2014).

Ukraine can be sixth on the list if its application is approved. This does not mean, however, that it will become part of the European family in the near future. The integration process consists of three main stages. First, if member states assess that a country is ready, it can become a candidate country for membership. But this does not mean that negotiations can start immediately as that requires another unanimous decision. If the candidate country implements the expected reforms, it will then need the approval of all member states again for the accession.

Turkey is the absolute record holder in terms of having waited decades to join the EU. The country submitted its application for membership in 1987 and was only approved as a candidate country 12 years later, in 1999.

Photo: Pixabay

It took another 6 years for integration negotiations to start, but the process that began in 2005 has since come to a total halt. Only 1 out of 30 chapters has been closed in the last 17 years, and for 5 years, the EU has not opened any new chapter with Turkey. Experts say that this is why candidate status has a rather symbolic meaning for Ukraine, as decision-makers know that EU accession is a long process which has become more difficult for countries seeking to join the bloc over the past decade. There is a long way ahead of the country even if its request is accepted at the next European Council session.

WORLD POLITICS

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bosnia and herzegovina, croatia, ukraine