EU European affairs ministers on Tuesday approved the granting of candidate country status to Bosnia and Herzegovina, a decision that will be endorsed by European leaders at a summit on Thursday and marks the start of a long accession process, AFP reported.

This happened a week after the summit in Tirana, where the EU reaffirmed its commitment to the Western Balkans enlargement process, which is intensifying against the background of the war in Ukraine.

In October, the European Commission recommended that member states grant the status to the country of 3.5 million people, which suffers from poverty and political instability and faces separatist threats.

EU ministers approved Bosnia’s candidate status, saying it must take steps to strengthen the rule of law, fight corruption and organized crime, manage migration and fundamental rights.

The Minister of European Affairs of the Czech Republic, Mikuláš Bek, whose country holds the presidency of the EU Council for six months, hailed the “historic moment” for Bosnia.

“In the current geopolitical context, the Council underlines that Bosnia urgently needs to make progress on its path to the EU, in particular by fulfilling all 14 key priorities for the opening of accession negotiations identified in the Commission’s conclusion,” the institution representing the member states in its conclusions.

After the elections in Bosnia in early October and while negotiations on the formation of the central government are still ongoing, the EU “looks forward to the rapid establishment of functional legislative and executive authorities in the state, entities and cantons to focus on reforms (to advance) towards the EU.” .

Bosnia is divided into a Serb territory, Republika Srpska, and a Croat-Muslim federation, bound together by a weak and often paralyzed central government.

This complex political system was inherited from the Dayton Peace Accords, which ended an intercommunal war that killed 100,000 people between 1992 and 1995.