The people and the governments of the region have an urgent need for tangible benefits from the EU accession process. To achieve that, we need to reform the accession process that would gradually involve the candidate countries before they become full EU members, the former MoFA of Germany and the current Chairperson of the Bundestag Committee on Foreign Affairs, told the Macedonian Parliament on Tuesday.

Roth specified six proposals for the announced reforms, which he thinks would speed up the accession process and still be attractive to the West Balkan countries, without violating the strict EU accession criteria.

In the future, Roth emphasized, the start of the negotiations, as well as the opening and the closing of the Chapters, should be decided by a qualified majority in the Council of Ministers.

“It is unacceptable for one or two EU member countries to blackmail everyone else. That was the bitter reality when I was Foreign Affairs Minister. I was on my knees, begging and convincing my French colleagues, then doing the same with my Bulgarian colleagues”, Roth told the participants of the conference Improving the Berlin Process through Parliamentary Democracy, held in the Macedonian Parliament, in the organization by the Institute of Democracy from Skopje.

The German MP and diplomat also proposed for the candidate countries that will achieve satisfactory progress in the sectors of rule of law and good governance to become part of the European Council and regularly attend Council of Ministers’ sessions, without voting rights.

Roth stressed that the EU should develop closer cooperation with the candidate countries in the sectors of security, energy, and infrastructure. A gradual accession to the common EU market would be an attractive stimulus. He said that the accession financial aid should also be enlarged significantly to cover for the failings regarding the investments and a kind of protection against the Chinese loans.

The other two of the six proposals which, according to Rothm, will reform the process of EU integration are the role of the pro-European civil society by, for example, procedures for mandatory consultations, and the fact that te EU member countries should increase the process of sponsoring that would provide for technical aid in the accession process.

“I spoke with many Macedonian colleagues during my visit, and they are all fed up with the European Union. They are young people who trusted the EU process and I understand why they don’t trust it anymore. The problem is not that only yo have to fulfill your obligations, but also the EU must fulfill its obligations and promises”, Roth said.

The return of the war on European soil, Roth concluded, reminded the EU that the stabilization and the integration of East and Southeast Europe is in the EU’s interest.