The Stabilisation and Association Agreement
(SAA) between the European Union and Bosnia and Herzegovina will enter into
force on June 1, Bosnia’s government said on Thursday, quoting the head of the
EU Delegation to BiH.
The entry into force of the SAA is only a step in
the long journey to possible EU membership and now everything is in the hands of
Bosnian people and political leaders, Lars-Gunnar Wigemark was quoted as saying
in a statement released by Bosnia's Council of Ministers after he met the
council’s new chairman Denis Zvizdic.
In March the Council of the
European Union gave the green light to the enforcement of the SAA with Bosnia
after the Balkan country has met the necessary conditions. It, however, did not
set a date.
In February Bosnia’s parliament adopted a political and
economic reform plan, according to which government institutions will implement
all reforms needed to establish institutional functionality and efficiency at
all levels of authority which will enable the country to prepare for its future
EU membership as a sovereign state.
Bosnia and Herzegovina signed the SAA
in 2008 and ratified it in 2010.The country has had problems advancing its EU
membership bid for some years mostly because of inter-ethnic rivalry between
Muslims, Serbs and Croats.
Bosnia consists of two entities, the
Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serb Republic. The two entities have separate
assemblies and a central parliament with 28 seats allocated totheFederation
and 14 seatsto the Serb Republic.