Albania invited to open first chapter in EU membership talks

Albania's EU accession path will be cut off from North Macedonia, with the first negotiating groups officially opening on October 15th.

The news is made known by Euractive, referring to a unanimous decision by the ambassadors of the European Union member states yesterday.

The route of the two Western Balkan countries towards EU membership was accompanied by the start of negotiations officially launched in the summer of 2022. However, due to disagreements between Skopje and Bulgaria, the actual opening of chapters has been put off indefinitely. directly affecting Tirana's progress.

But now, the next step is expected to be taken by Albania in mid-October within the framework of the intergovernmental conference and opening of “Cluster 1ʹ Fundamentals”.

This group includes several chapters: The procurement, statistics, judiciary and fundamental rights, justice, freedom and security, as well as financial control.

This is good news for Albania in its efforts to meet the requirements to advance its path to the EU, but it is an obstacle for northern Macedonia, which once again fails to take a decisive step towards EU membership.

After several years of disagreement, Bulgaria and Northern Macedonia agreed in July 2022 that the RMV would change the Constitution and include the Bulgarian minority along with other minorities cited as the “Turkish people, the Vlach people, the Serbian people, the Roma, the Bosniak people and others”.

This would lead Sofia to remove the veto and progress of Skopje's talks.

However, the agreement has not been implemented due to lack of political will and consensus in northern Macedonia.

Currently, 100,000 Macedonian citizens have taken up Bulgarian citizenship, which means they have proved their Bulgarian roots.

Since when the nationalist party V MRO-DPMNE won the elections last May, the new government of Hristian Mickoski has made it clear that it wants to renegotiate the so-called “compromis French”.

As expected, the EU rejected that stance and warned that the next step would be to secede northern Macedonia from Albania and give Tirana the chance to advance.

After the May elections, Northern Macedonia faced its Greek and Bulgarian EU neighbours. First, the new president of Northern Macedonia, Gordana Silianovska-Davidkova, challenged Greece by not using the constitutional name “North Macedonia” during its inauguration speech.

Northern Macedonia added the name “Veriu” in 2018 to end a long-standing dispute with Greece following the historic Prespa agreement.