BiH awaits EU green light: Questionnaire for our country will be quite extensive

The General Affairs Council of the European Union will today  at its session in Brussels give the green light to BiH's application for membership in the Union, and will task the European Commission to start preparing the questionnaire for BiH,  writes Patria.

As early as the beginning of September, the Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy in the European Commission, Johannes Hahn, stated that at today's session, he would task the European Commission to start preparing the questionnaire for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

European officials praised BiH's progress in implementing the reform agenda at a meeting with BiH government representatives in Sarajevo yesterday, calling it the first step.

The Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH, Denis Zvizdić, who is in Brussels today, on the other hand, expressed his expectation that the application will be accepted today.

He bases his optimism on the fact that BiH has fulfilled all three required conditions, which is the credible implementation of the Reform Agenda, within which 40 percent  of the measures planned by the economic Reform Agenda in BiH have been implemented, although the agenda was adopted for a four-year period.

In addition, the protocol on adapting the Stabilization and Association Agreement between BiH and the EU has been adopted, and the coordination mechanism has been adopted as an instrument for joint action through which BiH will be able to speak with the EU with one voice.

After this comes the questionnaire for BiH. The questionnaire will be quite extensive given the structure of our country.

If everything goes according to plan and our authorities do the job ahead of them, the European Commission could send the questionnaire to our authorities about 40 days after today's session.

In the worst-case scenario, as confirmed by some EU sources in Brussels, we could receive the questionnaire by the end of the year.