The European Union (EU) will sign the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with Bosnia and Herzegovina in May, which is the first step towards EU membership.
At a meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday, EU foreign ministers decided that Bosnia has made the necessary progress in meeting the conditions set by the EU and agreed to sign a SAA with it as soon as possible, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said at a press conference.
Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said the EU was in fact ready to sign the agreement with Bosnia on Tuesday, but the signature was postponed for technical reasons.
"We need to make sure that everything is right, including the translation of the text into different languages, legal checking and so on. There is a lot of work to do," he said.
The EU would like to sign the agreement with Bosnia probably at the meeting of foreign ministers at the end of May, Rupel said.
Bosnia will be the last of the six West Balkan countries to sign the SAA with the EU, after similar steps by Croatia, Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro and Serbia.
The SAA is designed to boost trade and economic ties between the 27-nation bloc and West Balkan countries and put them on path towards full EU membership.
Source:Xinhua
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