Deputy Prime Minister Bujar Osmani today confirmed that Macedonia will not open European Union accession talks this June, as the Zaev Government insisted for almost a year, but that that would happen in January 2020 at the earliest.
Osmani’s statement comes after European Commissioner Johannes Hahn announced that the Commission will recommend opening the “preparatory stage for accession negotiations” this year, and not actual negotiations.
We’ve been saying what Hahn is saying now. Our expectations are that, according to our calendar, in June we receive a decision to open accession talks, or rather that a date will be confirmed which will give the European Commission the mandate to prepare a negotiating framework, so at the end of 2019 we could hold the first conference with the EU member states, given that we don’t negotiate with the EU but with individual member states. If the conference is held at the end of 2019, we can expect to open the first chapter in January. This is what Hahn was explaining, that June doesn’t mean accession talks begin in June, Osmani said.
And yet, in his previous public comments, most notably the “celebratory” tweets from the 2018 European Council, Osmani insisted that Macedonia will “open the accession negotiations next June”. Osmani and Zaev not only tweeted the announcement, but shared a selfie to emphasize the importance of the moment.
Despite changing its name in a forced and imposed procedure, which is expected to lift Greek objections to opening EU accession talks, Macedonia now faces opposition from France and the Netherlands. Osmani said that he met with French Ambassador Christian Thimonier.
Nobody can say what the decision reached in June will be, but we know that if somebody deserves to receive the approval that is the Republic of North Macedonia, which gave rebirth to the European values which are currently under threat and attack, and is an island in the Balkans enjoying a renaissance of the European idea and all its values, Osmani said.
Hahn, on the other hand, was assuring members of the European Parliament that, even if talks begin now, Macedonia’s and Albania’s path to the EU will last at least as long as Croatia’s eight years long accession talks, and likely even longer.
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