BiH to seek EU candidate status by year's end

04/08/2008

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) -- The government plans to submit an application for EU candidate status by the end of the year, Prime Minister Nikola Spiric told the Dnevni Avaz newspaper on Sunday (August 3rd). He added that signing the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU on June 16th gave BiH the formal right to immediately apply to become an EU membership candidate but that BiH authorities would prefer to wait and complete more reforms to make the bid more serious and comprehensive. Spiric explained that the decision on the exact date would come after the first European Commission's (EC) report on BiH due in November. Last week, Spiric noted that BiH must meet 30 targets for a positive report; so far, BiH has met two-thirds of them. Most are related to human rights, reduction of corruption and of human trafficking, border control and conduct of a census, as well as development of small and medium-sized enterprises, environmental protection and establishment of the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data. (Nezavisne Novine, Dnevni Avaz, RTRS - 03/08/08)