BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA OPENS EU ASSOCIATION TALKS

Bosnia-Herzegovina is the last former Yugoslav republic to have opened talks on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU.

A two-day meeting that opened on 25 January in Sarajevo marks the official start of Bosnia-Herzegovina's negotiations with the EU on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA). The SAA is considered a major step towards membership of the Union.

The SAA talks were authorised by the EU's foreign ministers in November 2005. At that time, the Commission's director general for enlargement, Fabrizio Barbaso, described the negotiations on Bosnia-Herzegovina's SAA as a "very very fast process, much faster than the [similar] procedures used in the past". Barbaso predicted that the SAA talks could be concluded in 12 months, depending on the country's ability to implement the required reforms.

The pace of the negotiations will also depend on the ability of the country's three main communities - the Bosniacs, the Serbs and the Croats - to agree on the schedule of reforms.

Bosnia-Herzegovina is the last former Yugoslav country to open SAA talks with the EU. Slovenia has been a full EU member since 2004, Croatia started formal membership negotiations in October 2005, Macedonia has already concluded an SAA and Serbia-Montenegro launched SAA talks last November.