On Wednesday, the European Commission published its annual report on the enlargement strategy and progress of candidate countries and potential candidate countries for EU membership. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one step closer to the negotiations for membership of the European Union. The European Commission proposed to grant it a candidate status, but the country must first meet several conditions. The final decision is expected to be made by the EU heads of state in December.

The Russian aggression against Ukraine has awakened Brussels from the enlargement stagnation. Once the candidate status was granted to Ukraine in June, Bosnia and Herzegovina could no longer be left on the sidelines, an opinion which was also clearly voiced by Slovenia.

The Commission’s decision is based on the initiative of the Slovenian Government, which has been striving for this since the meeting of the European Council in June. Prime Minister Robert Golob highlighted that we can be proud that it was revealed that the size of a country does not matter if you have clever ideas. And, if you have clever ideas and implement them systematically, then you can forward them to the whole of Europe or the entire world. This is one of the important messages that we were unaware of in the past, as we were limiting ourselves instead of showing sufficient ambition on the European stage.