Foreign Affairs Minister Nikola Dimitrov poured cold water on the rosy announcement from Deputy Prime Minister Bujar Osmani, who earlier today said that the European Union member states finally approved the opening of accession talks with Macedonia. EU leaders are supposed to meet over a video-conference in a week to discuss the coronavirus crisis, while opening accession talks with Macedonia and Albania is one of the items on the agenda.

The debate in COREPER continues today. There are positive signals but there are no guarantees. The job is not done yet. COREPER is not the institution that makes political decisions. There are efforts made to determine how the meeting will take place. I believe that the EU will make a big mistake if it sends the message that it is so overwhelmed with the health crisis that it can’t reach any other decisions. But our politicians need to be careful with their statements given the disappointment of the past EU summits, Dimitrov said.

This Government has a long history of announcing that the accession talks date was approved, who would then turn out not to be true.