The Alliance for Albanians welcomes the European Commission’s recommendation Macedonia to open accession negotiations with the EU, stressing that this is not big progress that should be celebrated by the ruling coalition SDSM-DUI.

First, as indicated in the 2019 progress report, since 2009 the European Commission has repeatedly given recommendations to the EU Council to start negotiations with North Macedonia. And secondly, regardless of the very positive tone, the progress report 2019 did not show concrete results for the conditions set out in the Council’s conclusions of June 2018, the party said.

The failure of SDSM-DUI’s government to provide concrete reforms and restore confidence in state institutions was twice sanctioned by the citizens of North Macedonia, once in the referendum on September 30, 2018, and then again in the first round of presidential elections on April 21, 2019.

There is now a real risk that the inaction of the government will be sanctioned by EU leaders in the context of an increase in the sense of anti-enlargement in EU member states that explained the EC’s decision to postpone the publication of the enlargement package until after the European elections.

The failure of SDSM-DUI’s government to start negotiations this summer should pave the way for the formation of a technical government to prepare the country for early elections as a precondition for creating a genuine reformist coalition that will have the strength and political will to materialize the European perspective of North Macedonia, the party concludes.