After thirteen years as a potential candidate to the European Union (EU), in 2016, Bosnia and Herzegovina finally applied for membership. It then took the European Commission three more years to adopt an opinion on this application. However, after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the accession process of Bosnia and Herzegovina increased in pace, as the country was officially recognised as a candidate in 2022. Subsequently, accession negotiations were opened in 2024. Why this sudden pace increase in the country’s accession process?
My thesis investigated how the EU has changed its approach to enlargement after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The EU usually sets strict conditions for candidate countries regarding, for example, the rule of law, democracy or the judiciary. This is called conditionality. Candidate countries then have to meet these conditions to receive assistance and, ultimately, become a member. When a candidate country does not do so, on the other hand, it will receive a penalty, usually with the EU blocking further assistance. In short, when it comes to EU accession, the EU focuses on achieving transformation in candidate countries.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, however, has not made a lot of progress on the implementation of EU reforms. Yearly Communications on EU Enlargement Policy reveal that the country consistently fails to implement reforms concerning the rule of law or the judiciary. This can be explained by the internal stability caused by the way the Bosnian state works with its administrative division into two parts, governed by three ethnic groups. Given this lack of progress, it may seem strange that the country has now been rewarded by the EU through the opening of further accession negotiations.
I argue that, partially in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU’s approach to the accession process of Bosnia and Herzegovina has changed from an approach focused on achieving an intra-state transformation towards a more explicit geopolitical approach with an emphasis on security and stability of the region. The EU has changed its approach to respond to external threats and an increased geopolitical struggle for power with other competitors.
This means that in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the concomitant changes in the EU’s security environment, as well as the internal instability in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the EU shifted its focus from merit-based accession towards an emphasis on stability in its neighbourhood and securing its sphere of influence.
First of all, the increasing Russian influence in Bosnia and Herzegovina plays an important role, particularly in the Bosnian Serb-dominated Republika Srpska. Other geopolitical rivals active in the country, such as China and Türkiye, seek to entice the Bosnian government with large-scale investments. Lastly, trust in the enlargement process has been decreasing due to internal divisions at the EU level and the slow implementation of reforms in the Balkans. With the war in Ukraine and the increasing Russian influence on the continent, the European Commission now considers enlargement as a “geostrategic investment” for stability and safety in addition to, and sometimes in place of, a transformative process toward democratic governance.
Via a content analysis of Communications on EU Enlargement Policy between 2016 and 2024, written by the European Commission, I evince how the general approach of the EU to accession has changed over time. In the first few years, the EU focused on the fulfilment of EU conditions and values. From 2019 onwards, geopolitical considerations were taken into account, although more marginally. After 2022, the EU emphasises that it has to step up as a geopolitical actor in order to maintain security and stability in its immediate neighbourhood. This includes policies to counter Russian influence on the continent, such as the attempts to reduce European dependency on Russian gas.
However, despite the EU’s discourse about stepping up its game as an actor on the world stage, its language towards Bosnia and Herzegovina in particular remains focused on achieving transformation, emphasising once more that accession remains a merit-based process. Still, there has been a significant increase in the pace of the accession process. Some risks come with this: it could undermine the EU’s own transformative power. If countries can join without implementing necessary reforms, how can the EU demand those reforms of other candidates? While adopting a geopolitical approach, the EU risks that its transformative power in other cases will be weakened.
And yet, many European leaders argue that the risk of losing influence in the Western Balkans outweighs the risk of losing transformative power. As the Prime Minister of Croatia, Andrej Plenković put it: “The slower the process is, the more influence of other global actors in the region we have, whether it is Russia, whether it is China, whether it is some other countries”.
All in all, the path of Bosnia and Herzegovina to EU accession remains long and uncertain. There is no question that the country must address its internal instability, improve the rule of law and tackle corruption. But EU membership is now closer than ever. EU enlargement is no longer just a checklist full of reforms. It is now part of the big geopolitical game in Europe, and Bosnia and Herzegovina has become one of the most important pieces.
Text: Jesper Visser
Jesper Visser has recently graduated from Radboud University with a Master in International Relations.