EU member states managed to reach a compromise on the conclusions on enlargement, but the ambition to hold the first intergovernmental conferences with Skopje and Tirana is not part of them, MIA’s correspondent in Brussels reported.

Although the Slovenian presidency hoped that negotiations with Macedonia and Albania would begin by the end of this year, and this was explicitly stated in the draft conclusions, after today’s talks between the Ministers of European Affairs, the timeline was not maintained.

The European Commission and the Council of the EU expressed satisfaction with the compromise reached on enlargement and called it a masterpiece of the EU’s ability to build a compromise, said the Vice President of the European Commission, Vera Jourova.

However, that compromise no longer includes the deadline for the start of negotiations “by the end of this year”.

Asked by MIA whether Slovenia was disappointed that it did not fulfill its ambition and whether it was a sign that the new Bulgarian government was not ready to open negotiations with Macedonia, the Slovenian presidency said it was satisfied with the final compromise.

What is important is the conclusions of the Council, we do not compare them with the previous drafts, some formulations are here from two months ago and more, but since the negotiations for such documents are very long, I would definitely assess today as a success, said the State Secretary at Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gašper Dovžan.

He further stressed that this is “an example of the spirit of compromise and loyal cooperation of member states”.

What we basically predicted to achieve was not feasible this year and this is the factual reason why “this year” does not appear in the conclusions anymore, added Dovžan.

MIA asked for an explanation why Macedonia is treated differently from all other countries in this text through the use of the long name, everywhere, while others are named by their short name and whether this is a new dispute with the name of the country this time imposed by Bulgaria.

This is a separate issue, we need a negotiating framework to start the negotiations, it is another process that will be started, because we have a new government in Bulgaria and we are very optimistic that the long-established path will be followed as soon as possible, he said.

In the final conclusions, the explicit reference that connects the enlargement process for Macedonia with the implementation of the Agreement with Bulgaria has been removed, but this reference is also present in the negotiating framework, as explained by the diplomats who had insight into the framework.

If Macedonia comes to the step of adopting that negotiating framework, the question remains how to conduct a diplomatic battle on that ground so as to not allow the negotiation process to be trapped by the bilateral dispute between Skopje and Sofia.