The European Commission said on Wednesday it was recommending that EU member countries grant Bosnia-Herzegovina candidate status to join the bloc.

"The Commission recommends that candidate status be granted to Bosnia-Herzegovina by the (European) Council on the understanding that a number of steps are taken," commissioner for enlargement Oliver Varhelyi tweeted after making the announcement to EU lawmakers.

According to the Commission's annual report on EU enlargement, Bosnia needed to make progress on "democracy, functionality of state institutions, rule of law, the fight against corruption and organised crime," as well as guaranteeing media freedom and migration management.

"Wind of change is once again blowing through Europe and we have to capture this momentum," Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU's executive arm, said in a speech. "The Western Balkans belong in our family and we have to make this very, very clear."

Bosnia's problems

In the case of Bosnia, the country of 3 million people is marked by ethnic divisions that have persisted since a devastating war three decades ago.

It remains divided between a Serb entity and a Muslim-Croat federation, linked by a weak central government.

Bosnia's dysfunctional administrative system was created by the 1995 Dayton Agreement, which ended the conflict in the 1990s. However, it largely failed to create a framework for the country's political development.

The Commission's conditional support for Bosnia follows similar approvals for Ukraine and Moldova in June. In 2003, the EU identified the Western Balkans as a potential candidate. Bosnia applied for EU membership in 2016.

What is next?

If the EU, which currently has 27 member countries, accepts the recommendation, Bosnia-Herzegovina would join seven other candidate-status nations: Turkey, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine.

The next step on the path to membership is the start of formal accession talks, a step which in turn requires the approval of all EU member states and can take years.

Albania and North Macedonia have started accession negotiations after years of delays, having been granted EU candidate status in 2005 and 2014 respectively.

Turkey is another example of the difficult road to EU accession. Named official candidate in 1999, accession talks are now effectively frozen.

dh/nm (AFP, dpa, Reuters)