On Tuesday 14 November, the Deputy Prime Minister of Macedonia with responsibility for European Affairs, Bujar Osmani, said that he hoped his country would be able to open negotiations for accession to the European Union in the coming months.
The country is currently putting in place a programme of reforms put together this summer and entitled: 'Three, six, nine', referring to the progress to be made in three, six and nine months. “We hope to have started negotiations once part nine (months) is complete”, he told a conference at the European Policy Centre (EPC) on the process of the accession of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Osmani hopes that the European Council of June 2018 would be the “opportunity to start the screening process on the first two chapters, to get a date for negotiations to begin. We do not expect Macedonia to be a member of the EU in two years' time, but we want to be part of the process, because we believe we deserve it”, he said. “We have been in this process for 16 years, waiting for the door to open”, he added. In 2001, FYROM signed a stabilisation and association agreement with the EU.
When asked by EUROPE about the fact that Greece could block the launch of talks, as the question of using the name 'Macedonia' is still pending, the minister expressed optimism. He stressed that although it will not be possible to find a quick solution, the alternative could be to carry out the two processes side by side. “We have offered to start the process, to start by opening the first chapters, the screening process, with dialogue over the name in parallel”, he explained. “It takes 130 consensual votes at the Council in the negotiation process, whenever a chapter is opened or closed, for every criterion to be met. This means that Greece will have a veto or the ability to block the integration process 130 times”, he explained, adding that the situation was the same concerning NATO.
“The countries of the region are like a bicycle: if they do not move forwards, they fall over”, the minister said. His country is coming out of a political crisis caused in part by the stagnation of the accession process. He said that if the countries of the region lose concentration, if the status quo goes on for too long, they could easily go off-course internally, “but also due to external interference”, particularly from Russia.
Osmani described 2018 as a year of “golden” opportunity, as 2019 will see elections both in FYROM and Greece, plus the European elections. He said it would be a propitious time for the Balkans, as the EU is focusing again on the enlargement agenda, and noted “optimism” at the prospects of enlargement to the Western Balkans, particularly with the forthcoming Presidencies of the Council of the EU - Bulgaria, Austria, Romania and Croatia - “having an interest in getting the Western Balkans into the EU”.
During their visit to Brussels, Osmani and his counterpart for foreign affairs met the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, and the Commissioner for Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)