Prime Minister Zoran Zaev expects that the promise of clear support for opening the accession negotiations in October this year will be fulfilled and that the country will get a date for their start. Reforms in the EU, he believes, can be a parallel process with the enlargement process with the countries of the region.

Such a decision will confirm the credibility of the EU in the region and it will be a recommendation for countries with candidate status to continue reforms to meet European standards and to encourage policies that will bring prosperity, democracy and stability to the region. We understand and support the debate on EU reforms, but we are convinced that this process can go in parallel with the process of negotiations and enlargement with the countries of the region, Prime Minister Zaev said in his address during the working breakfast at the Western Balkans Summit in Poznań.

Zaev also emphasized that the commitment to enlargement will confirm that the region is of strategic interest to the EU, and that those policies will minimize the interests of third parties.

Prime Minister Zaev, as the government’s press service announced informed, began its activities from the program of heads of government at the Western Balkans Summit as part of the annual conference held this year in Poland, which presided over the past 12 months with the Berlin Process for the countries of the region , as a platform for European dialogue and cooperation to support the EU’s enlargement policy with the countries of the region.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki welcomed Prime Minister Zaev and other heads of government at the summit, after which they went to a working breakfast.

During this working session of the Forum of Heads of Government of the Western Balkan Countries, Prime Minister Zaev thanked the Presidency of the Republic of Poland for the Berlin Process, during a period of progress in the region and during the period when the Republic of North Macedonia realized all recommendations of the European Council of June 2018, followed by the strongest and unconditional recommendation by the European Commission to start the country’s EU aceesion negotiations, the government’s press service said.