Bloomberg reports on the intent by French President Emmanuel Macron to bring down a notch the push to enlarge Europe toward the Balkans. Macron is meeting Chancellor Merkel this evening in a meeting beset by many crises, during which Macedonia and Albania hope she will get the French President to allow the opening of accession talks next week.

Balkan hopes of starting accession negotiations with the European Union hang in the balance, as France insists the bloc is not yet ready to discuss the possibility of accepting new members, documents exchanged between diplomatic missions in Brussels show. “North” Macedonia and Albania are keen for a green light this week to start formal talks to join the world’s largest trading club. While most member states back their request, France and the Netherlands want a complete overhaul of the enlargement process before negotiations with the two countries can begin, Bloomberg reports.

According to the agency, “Paris wants any further talks to be more gradual, more concrete in the benefits they bring to concerned countries and reversible according to the effective, tangible and sustainable implementation of reforms”.

No date for formal negotiations should be given to Albania and “North” Macedonia before the EU completes this overhaul of its “methodology”, the French document says.

Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov announced he is practically moving to Brussels this coming week, to directly push for the accession date, which can make or break his and Zoran Zaev’s push to rename Macedonia. He and other supporters of the opening of accession talks warn that failure to do so can bring security risks and other influences in the Balkans. “But western EU officials exasperated by the failure of eastern nations that joined in 2004 and 2007 to uphold the rule of law and fight corruption are wary of admitting new members”, Bloomberg reports, listing the cases of Poland, Hungary and Romania as new member states which then found themselves “at loggerheads with the European Commission over their democratic standards”.

At France’s insistence, the EU said in its June communique on the topic of enlargement that admission of new members should take into account the bloc’s “capacity to integrate” them. France and the Netherlands aren’t alone in their skepticism, Bloomberg adds. Adding to the complications, countries such as Greece and Bulgaria cite bilateral issues that first need to be resolved, while others seek conditions attached to any positive nod, especially for Albania. The two only agreed to Macedonia opening its accession talks after major concessions, but now also want to see the two countries lumped together, which could undermine any rapproachment made under the treaties Zaev signed with Greece and Bulgaria.