(SARAJEVO) - Bosnian non-governmental organisations have called on lawmakers to adopt two police reform bills to be voted on Thursday to help the country on its path towards eventual EU membership.

"We appeal to you to reach a compromise and pass the police reform bills...or Bosnia's progress to EU integration will remain blocked," 13 NGOs said in a letter sent to the members of Bosnia's central parliament.

The NGOs said that achieving progress on the way to EU membership was Bosnia's "most important strategic goal" as it would help revive the country's war-torn economy and open the way for EU pre-accession funds and visa liberalisation.

"Bosnia is already the least developed country of Europe; isolation from the rejection of the police reform would leave us without a chance to change that," the letter said.

The two police reform, to be discussed by parliament's Lower House, are the last EU-set hurdle for Bosnia to sign a key pact on closer ties with the 27-nation bloc, as expected, later this month.

Bosnia's strongest parliamentary and opposition parties -- the Muslim Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) -- have already announced that they will vote against the bills saying they were just "cosmetic".

Initially, Brussels demanded a unification of Bosnia's separate police forces.

However, the EU has since accepted a reform which envisages setting up seven new state-level police coordination bodies, without affecting the autonomy of police forces of the country's two highly autonomous post-war parts.

Since the 1992-95 war Bosnia consists of the Serbs' Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.

In December last year, Bosnian initialled a Stabilisation and Association Agreement -- essentially a trade and aid pact, seen as the first step towards joining the European club.

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