H.E. Mr. Vanja Filipovic:

I can only echo what my colleague said; we have to meet the criteria. The goal for Bosnia and Herzegovina is not just to become a member but to reform itself into a functional, fully democratic and pluralistic society. The process is important, therefore, not just the end state, for our sake. Russia and its partners on the ground have been working hard to slow this down. Unfortunately, it has a large arsenal of tools at its disposal, including institutional tools within our legal and constitutional framework, to obstruct that process, reverting back to the Dayton peace agreement. We needed the peace agreement to stop the war but the Dayton constitution - and this has already been established by numerous rulings of the European Court of Human Rights - is not compatible with EU values. We have to reform it and get from the Dayton constitution era into the Brussels era. Political forces that enjoy power thanks to the status quo will keep resisting that and they have the support of Russia. The EU as a whole remains open, to a varying degree from country to country, but everybody agrees that the values and norms of the EU must be met, which is what we are trying to achieve. We require active assistance on that path.