Macedonia government optimistic about EU talks

Northern Macedonia Prime Minister Zoran Zaev had the chance to change opinion several times and with French President Emmanuel Makron, who in October blocked the start of northern Macedonia's talks with the EU by conditioning him with deep reform of the negotiation process.

Asked whether in talks with Makron has received positive news of possible unblocking of the process in the coming months, Zaev cautioned that he believes in good news soon, but with optimism “realist”.

I'm convinced that after the beautiful decision, the good time for us, I can't share anything because as a bigger optimist, I'm now a real optimist. The jobs are going in a positive direction, ours is to continue working, to continue with reforms, and I hope that the real decision will be brought, or the historic error that makes it improve, I don't want to share optimism in any way, we have to be committed to Europeanising Macedonia with more value and reforms as soon as they decide to deliver to us”, Prime Minister Zaev said today.

Makron, in turn, proved much more reserved in relation to opening talks with Northern Macedonia and Albania and refuses at any cost to separate the two countries, considering that this would be wrong “deadly”.

However, prior to any new openings of negotiations I said I want the procedure reformed, it will be more reversible and allow for definition, be political and be accompanied by stages of strategic partnerships with corresponding investments”, the French head of state explained.

He considers that the Balkans should be part of the European Union and that this is a geopolitical challenge.

The goal towards the Western Balkans is entirely to anchor on the European side, this is geopolitical challenge, this anchor may go through the prospect of membership for some, but we need to be clear that it runs through stages of strategic partnerships and investments. The fundamental mistake we've made collectively was to assess that our only approach to the Western Balkans is membership. There may be membership at the appointed time. Most say open the procedure, we know that they will not be joined ten years ago, we open them and we never close to”, Makron says, adding that the <x2-automatic mechanism” towards the Western Balkans is not a non-responsible”.

It does not release opportunities to praise the North Macedonia Government's achievements regarding the agreement with Greece and constitutional changes, but this does not seem to suffice for the positive decision for a short time.

“Vlerating that the incubation procedure is very bureaucratic, confusing, cannot be prevented, and it is not relevant, especially for the countries involved, ask Serbs if they change their lives with every opening of chapters, we need to create more strategic procedure”, Makron said. /Alsat. M/

The French president, however, voiced hope that until the EU-Western Balkans summit under the Croatian chairmanship in May any shift is possible.

Before any opening of the negotiations, the procedure should become more reversible, and I hope we will succeed in doing so before the Zagreb summit”, Makron said, and added that opening negotiations does not mean any automatism regarding the closure of these negotiations.

He sent orders to other EU member states regarding the future of enlargement, and said he would not accept any new EU member states unless the consensus deployment process is reformed in advance and the largest rate of deployment is set through the qualified majority. The other ones will be EU countries to admit that no member state can have its own commissioner on the European Commission.

According to him, those who want to expand should also respond to related issues for EU internal reforms, whose goal is to simplify the Union's decision-making and operation process.