North Macedonia warned of EU 'balkanization'

North Macedonian Prime Minister Christian Miscoski warned of a “Balkanization” of the EU due to some member states blocking the European integration of candidate countries, and pointed to double standards on the path to membership in the union.

The North Macedonian head of government took part on Sunday in a discussion on accelerating the Balkans' European integration with European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

“Instead of bringing Europe to the Balkans, we brought the Balkans to Europe. Unfortunately, there are EU member states that brought bilateral disputes with them to the EU instead of bringing Brussels values to the Balkans. Changing our name (the name of the country under the Prespa Treaty with Greece in 2018 - ed.) was not the only example of interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state,” Mitskoski said and clarified that it was now about Bulgaria's position. The broadcast was broadcast on the conference website.

The North Macedonian prime minister recalled that Greece first demanded that the official Skopje change its national flag for the sake of joining NATO and the EU and in 1995 it removed the “Vergina Star” symbol, which according to Athens refers to the Hellenistic heritage of ancient Macedonia.

“Changing the name, the flag, (the appearance - ed.) of the national currency, what is that but interference in internal affairs? How much longer should we suffer from double standards?” - Mitskoski emphasized.

EU leaders approved a political decision to start accession talks with North Macedonia at the end of March 2020, but the process has not been launched, in particular because it is blocked by Bulgaria. Relations between Bulgaria and North Macedonia are complicated due to disagreements over a “common language and history”, Sofia has refused to approve the framework for Skopje's EU accession talks in this regard.

In December 2023, EU leaders in Brussels decided to start accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova, which could start in March 2024 or later. Georgia was granted candidate status for accession. Five countries of the Western Balkans - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia - have the status of official candidates for EU accession. Self-proclaimed Kosovo has also applied for accession.

Obtaining candidate status is only the beginning of a rather long road to EU accession. Turkey has been in candidate status since 1999, North Macedonia since 2005, Montenegro since 2010 and Serbia since 2012. The last country to join the EU so far was Croatia, in 2013, a process that took ten years.

Reprinted from https://ria.ru/