European Commission to recommend EU accession talks with Bosnia

Brussels is pushing to accelerate EU expansion in Western Balkans as it eyes growing Russian and Chinese influence.

The European Commission is set to recommend that the European Union open accession talks with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that the EU’s executive arm will ask member states to open negotiations with Sarajevo, despite lingering ethnic divisions in the Western Balkan country, as the West eyes the growing influence of Russia and China in the region.

Bosnia is among six Western Balkan nations – alongside Albania, Serbia, Kosovo (a semi-autonomous territory and self-declared republic), Montenegro and North Macedonia – that are at different stages of the EU accession process.

Despite early efforts to bring the sextet into the bloc to try to help consign the region’s wars and crises in the 1990s to history, impatience has been growing, with progress stalled for years.

However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and inroads being made by Moscow and Beijing in gaining influence, are helping to focus some minds in the West, pushing EU officials to accelerate the process.