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BiH to officially apply for EU membership in February

Xinhua, January 27, 2016 Adjust font size:

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will submit its application for European Union (EU) membership on Feb. 15, said Dragan Covic, chairman of the BiH presidency, on Tuesday.

BiH could get the candidate status in early 2017, said Covic, "this is a great opportunity for Bosnia and Herzegovina."

BiH has so far lagged behind other countries in the region in joining the EU. The country's EU integration process had been long-stalled before it was back on track after a British-German initiative in 2014.

It will take years for the Balkan state to join the EU, with difficult reforms and talks to be complicated by its complex political system.

Based on the Dayton Agreement, a peace accord which ended the Bosnian War in 1990s, BiH consists of two entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) dominated by Bosniaks and Croats, and Republika Srpska (RS) dominated by Serbs. Endit