Bosnia files for European Union membership

Bosnia has applied to become a member of the European Union although it has not met all the conditions laid down by the bloc.

Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Dragan Covic, left, and Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders participate in a handover ceremony of the EU membership Application with Bosnia Herzegovina at the EU Council building in Brussels on Monday, Feb. 15, 2016. Source: AAP

Bosnia has applied to join the European Union, the bloc's top diplomat Federica Mogherini says, though Brussels signalled Sarajevo has not met all conditions to submit the application.

Mogherini said 28 EU states will now analyse the application, adding it was good news for the bloc and for Bosnia, a former Yugoslav republic where a 1990s war killed 100,000 people.

"At a time when the Union is questioned from within, seeing that with our immediate neighbours there is such an energy and willingness to join and work hard to adapt their countries, society, economy, institutions, systems to the European standards, gives us the sense of responsibility we have also towards our European Union citizenship," she told journalists on Monday.