Green light from the European Union for accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia – Le Monde

On the right, the President of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski, and Ilir MetaNorth, his Albanian counterpart on the left. In Skopje, January 11, 2022. ROBERT ATANASOVSKI / AFP The 27 member countries of the European Union gave their agreement on Monday July 18 to the opening of negotiations to integrate Albania and North Macedonia. A decision which comes the day after the signing of a protocol between Skopje and Sofia lifting the last obstacles. The Twenty-Seven have just “given their agreement to the opening of accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia! tweeted Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency. “We have taken another important step towards bringing the Western Balkans closer to the EU,” he added, after a meeting on this subject in Brussels. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and his counterpart from North Macedonia Dimitar Kovacevski are expected in Brussels on Tuesday to formally open these negotiations which will take years. They can begin thanks to the signing on Sunday by Bulgaria and North Macedonia of a bilateral protocol, initiated by France, which held the rotating presidency of the EU in the first half of the year. Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia, in need of European integration North Macedonia had acceded to the status of candidate for entry into the EU nearly twenty years ago years, and it has already had to overcome major differences opposing it to Greece to join NATO in March 2020. The Bulgarian position also prevented the candidacy of Albania, a candidate since 2014. Conflict with Bulgaria The Bulgaria was blocking the opening of negotiations until recently due to a dispute between the two countries over a long list of historical and linguistic issues. Under French pressure, the Bulgarian parliament agreed last month to lift its veto in exchange for guarantees that North Macedonia would meet certain demands on disputed points. The language issue remains very sensitive in North Macedonia, Bulgaria considering the Macedonian language as a Bulgarian dialect, while the two countries dispute over historical events and figures, mainly inherited from the Ottoman past. Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Bulgaria lifts its veto on the accession of North Macedonia to the EU The protocol will allow, among other things, that Macedonian becomes one of the official languages ​​of the EU. North Macedonia has pledged to change its Constitution to include Bulgarians in the recognized ethnic groups and to implement a 2017 friendship treaty aimed at eradicating hate speech. The nationalist right of the VMRO-DPMNE is furious and has denounced the compromise in recent days and called Dimitar Kovacevski a “traitor”. Brussels insists on the enlargement of the EU in the Balkans, the strategic importance of the region having increased in the context of the war in Ukraine. Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Ukraine candidate to integrate the EU: the four months that convinced the Europeans to open their door to a country at war Le Monde with AFP