Despite more than 5 hours of discussions, European leaders were unable, on the night of Thursday 17 to Friday 18 October, to reach a unanimous agreement on the opening of negotiations for the accession of North Macedonia and Albania to the European Union.
After 4 hours of debate, a text of conclusions was drawn up. It proposed that the Commission should work on changing the methodology of the enlargement process by early 2020, as requested by France in particular, and that a decision on the opening of accession negotiations should be adopted by the Western Balkans Summit, scheduled to take place in Croatia in May 2020, explained a source to EUROPE.
However, there was no consensus on the text. Some leaders thought it went too far, while others thought it was better to have only a minimalist text.
The statements of the Czech Prime Minister, Andrej Babiš, and the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, illustrate these disagreements. “We made promises” to both countries and, according to the European Commission, they “fulfil the conditions to start the negotiations” for accession, said Mr Babiš, after the discussions, saying he was “very disappointed”. The Visegrád group to which his country belongs had sent a letter to pressure for a positive decision.
For Mr Rutte, the Twenty-Eight acknowledged that progress had been made, with the “change of name” in North Macedonia and progress in respect of the “Rule of law”. But there is “still work to be done”, said the Dutch Prime Minister. He added that in respect of Albania, the necessary efforts were even greater.
While President of the European Council Donald Tusk proposed to return to the subject at the next European Council, according to one European source, the Finnish Prime Minister, Anti Rinne, explained upon leaving that the subject would be back on the leaders’ table on Friday. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant and Mathieu Bion with Solenn Paulic and Marion Fontana)