The leaders of 27 European member states will most likely not make a decision on opening accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina at the upcoming Brussels summit.

“The Council of the EU recommends that the European Council decide to open accession negotiations with BiH when a sufficient degree of compliance with the membership criteria is achieved,” states the part of the draft conclusions of the Council of Ministers prepared for the European Council session next Thursday, N1 learned.

Slovenia and Croatia lead the group of countries that launched a diplomatic initiative to open membership negotiations with BiH at next week's session, but this was opposed by several countries led by the Netherlands, which insists that negotiations not be opened before March, when an evaluation of the reform process in BiH and the fulfilment of 14 priorities, should be carried out.

The session of the European Council is scheduled for December 14 and 15, while the annual EU-Western Balkans summit will be held the day before, on December 13.