The media agree this is the most important event for BiH since the signing of the Dayton Agreement which ended the war in the country in 1995.
The SAA, initialled in 2007 and signed on 16 June 2008, had been ratified by all member states by February 2011. However, it did not enter into force because Bosnia and Herzegovina was required to implement some more reforms, including the European Court of Human Rights ruling in the Sejdic-Finci case to make it possible for members of ethnic minorities to run in elections for the State Presidency and the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly.
A member of the country's collective presidency, Dragan Covic, said activating the SAA was a historic event, noting optimistically that the country could apply for membership of the EU in two years.
"If we remain truly committed (...) we could apply for EU candidate status sometimes in 2017. This would be a big change and a major step in relation to what we have been doing over the past ten years," the Sarajevo-based Dnevni Avaz daily cited Covic as saying.
Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak said the "unfreezing" of the SAA was the most important event since the signing of the Dayton Accords.
I hope all of us together will have enough wisdom not to allow this to become a new "Sejdic-Finci" case, Crnadak said alluding to long-lasting unsuccessful negotiations on how to implement the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the removal of discrimination against members of national minorities in the election process.
European Parliament Rapporteur for BiH Christian Dan Preda said the time of "agreement-seeking" has passed and now Bosnian politicians have a clear obligation to implement reforms.
This is an opportunity that cannot be missed because the EU is once again showing that it is dedicated to following reforms in BiH, Preda said.
Finance Minister Vjekoslav Bevanda said a serious job and concrete steps were ahead of Bosnia, without which the SAA's going into force would mean nothing.
"For the sake of future generations, it would be crazy to miss this chance," Bevanda said.
A deputy in the national parliament, Halid Genjac of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), warned, however, that the first concrete step could be the one on which the entire process would trip over.
Genjac is worried about the fact that politicians from the Serb entity are preventing reforms by insisting on keeping as much powers as possible on the entity level.