(BRUSSELS) - The EU presidency on Friday said it hoped to begin Bosnia's formal path towards European Union membership as soon as possible, after the country's lawmakers adopted a key police reform package.

"Police reform is the crucial step for Bosnia-Herzegovina which should allow the country to further progress on the path towards EU integration," the EU's Slovenian presidency said in a statement.

"The EU Presidency is looking forward for the signing of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with Bosnia as soon as possible," it added.

The SAA, a key trade and aid pact, is the first formal step towards EU membership, which Brussels foresees for the whole of the western Balkans region including Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo.

The EU presidency, held by Slovenia for the first half of the year, encouraged all political forces in Bosnia "to make use of the current momentum and to continue vigorously with the implementation of other outstanding key priorities on the reform agenda."

Bosnian lower-house lawmakers adopted the police reforms by 22 votes to 19 late Thursday.

The decision stills need confirmation in the upper house but that is considered a formality.

Initially Brussels had called for the rapid unification of the separate police forces in Bosnia, which since the 1992-95 war consists of the Serbs' Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.

However the leaders of Bosnia's Serb community insisted on retaining control of police in their Republika Srpska entity while Croat and Muslim leaders wanted the forces to be unified and put under the authority of the state.

In the end the EU and the Bosnian parliament accepted a reform which envisages setting up seven new state-level police coordination bodies, without immediately affecting the autonomy of police forces of the country's two highly autonomous post-war regions.

The adopted bills stipulate the new bodies will assume authority over separate police forces after a year, in a way defined by constitutional reform.

Bosnian initialled the SAA in December, and EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said last month that Brussels expected to fully sign the agreement with Bosnia in April, pending the implementation of the police reforms.

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