Ljubljana - President Borut Pahor has received European Council President Charles Michel's reply to his letter in which Pahor advocated giving Bosnia-Herzegovina EU candidate status without setting conditions. Pahor's office said in Friday's release that Michel underlined his firm commitment to the European path of Western Balkan countries.

In his 14 June letter, Pahor said he believes the EU is an answer to all the issues in the Western Balkans, and urged Michel to advocate for concrete steps to speed up the enlargement process in the region, in particular granting EU candidate status to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Michel says in the reply that the EU is fully and unwaveringly committed to the European perspective of Western Balkan countries and supports the accelerated process of their accession to the EU.

He shares Pahor's concerns about the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and underlines that he is personally committed to helping the leaders in this country to continue the dialogue and to again focus on the implementation of the necessary reforms.

"The European Council underlined on 23 June its readiness to grant candidate status to Bosnia-Herzegovina and called on all political leaders in this country to stick to their commitments and swiftly implement the necessary reforms. This is a sign that the European path is open for Bosnia-Herzegovina, provided it takes the necessary steps", reads Michel's letter.

This is somewhat different from what Pahor had in mind when he said that Bosnia-Herzegovina should of course fulfil the conditions, but in a different order - it should be first granted the status and then meet the conditions, which he believes would strengthen the pro-European forces in the country and enhance the pace of internal alignment with European norms.