Macedonia Begins EU Accession Talks

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By Misko Taleski

Macedonia will begin preliminary high-level talks with the EU, which are designed to reduce the length of formal negotiations that the nation would have should it be given a date for accession discussions.

EC President Jose Manuel Barroso and Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule agreed to the March 15th discussions with Macedonia’s leadership last year in Ohrid.

The EU delegation’s office in Skopje said the dialogue aims to maintain the course of institutional reforms in order to bring Macedonia closer to the EU.

“That is why Commissioner Fule is launching the dialogue with Prime Minister (Nikola) Gruevski — to focus on key reform challenges,” EU spokesperson Konstantin Jovanovski told SETimes.

Jovanovski said talks will focus on reforming Macedonia’s public administration, strengthening the rule of law, protecting the media’s freedom of expression, improving the election process and developing the market economy.

“Macedonia now receives a higher(-level) treatment and is one step ahead, despite being blocked by Greece,” Gruevski said.

Macedonia has been waiting three years to obtain an EU membership negotiation date. Greece blocked a planned invitation for Macedonia to join NATO in 2008, and in 2009 blocked EU accession talks over a lengthy name dispute.

Greece says the name “Macedonia” suggests a claim to the Greek province of the same name. Macedonia, which was admitted to the UN under the name “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” says changing its name would deny its national identity. More than 100 nations recognise it as “Republic of Macedonia.”

Under the terms of the dialogue mechanism, EU and Macedonian leaders will meet twice a year, but the dialogue will go on throughout the year. A progress report will be published in October.

“Given that bilateral disputes have slowed down or stalled EU accession, this dialogue is an impetus for similar mechanisms to be undertaken elsewhere,” Centre for Political Research analyst Vladimir Bozhinovski told SETimes.

Having dialogue on the highest level is no substitute for beginning formal membership negotiations, according to Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister for European Issues Teuta Arifi.

“The dialogue is the EU’s pro-active answer [in response to] the activities we have undertaken since the latest EC progress report,” Arifi said.

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov said however, the ICJ verdict in favour of Macedonia and the 1996 Macedonia-Greece interim accord provide a framework for Macedonia to continue the EU integration process.

Ivanov impressed this stance upon high EU officials — Richard Hewitt, Eduard Kukan, Lojze Peterle — during their meeting late last month.

“We should have this process in parallel with our discussions with Greece to find a solution to the name issue,” Ivanov’s foreign affairs adviser, Darko Kostadinovski, told SETimes.

Some analysts say dialogue mechanisms can overcome existing regional bilateral disputes and ease the candidates’ EU accession.

“In 1981, the European Parliament gave a negative decision for Greece’s EU membership, but because of political pressure, the country was admitted,” Bozhinovski said.

The other regional countries that aspire for EU membership have not yet announced EU accession negotiations, but analysts say bilateral disputes will be an issue in the process.

Belgrade and Pristina reached an agreement last month regarding Kosovo’s regional representation, which Brussels received very positively and provided Serbia with EU membership candidate status.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will submit a membership application to the EU in July. The issues BiH faces are reforms-related but also related to relations with Serbia and Croatia regarding Republika Srpska and the position of Croats in BiH.

SETimes

The Southeast European Times Web site is a central source of news and information about Southeastern Europe in ten languages: Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, English, Greek, Macedonian, Romanian, Serbian and Turkish. The Southeast European Times is sponsored by the US European Command, the joint military command responsible for US operations in 52 countries. EUCOM is committed to promoting stability, co-operation and prosperity in the region.

One thought on “Macedonia Begins EU Accession Talks

  • April 4, 2012 at 8:02 pm
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    China is one of the nations that recognize FYROM as “Macedonia”. Curiously China does not equally recognize Taiwan as “Republic of China”. Why so if a name is just a name as FYROM apologists claim?

    The short of it is, that fact FYROM is called “Macedonia” today is evidence of only one thing. That politicians are unprincipled. Case in point…. how is it possible all the anti-Hellenic bigots (some of whom self-righteously even claim to speak for “human rights”)…. that patronizingly lectured Greeks on this name issue”…. have forgotten FYROM’s own past identity claims now that FYROM nationalists have been decendents of ancient Macedonians? (aka self-identifying Greeks)

    ‘We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian.’ – FYROM´s Ambassador to Canada Gyordan Veselinov, Ottawa Citizen Newspaper, February 24 1999

    “We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century … We are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians” – Kiro Gligorov, FYROM’s first President, Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992

    ‘We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great.’ – FYROM’S Ambassador Ljubica Acevshka, speech to US representatives in Washington on January 22 1999

    “The creation of the Macedonian nation, for almost half of a century, was done in a condition of single-party dictatorship. In those times, there was no difference between science and ideology, so the “Macedonian” historiography, unopposed by anybody, comfortably performed a selection of the historic material from which the “Macedonian” identity was created. There is nothing atypical here for the process of the creation of any modern nation, except when falsification from the type of substitution of the word “Bulgarian” with the word “Macedonian” were made.” -former FYROM foreign minister Denko Maleski
    http://www.utrinski.com.mk/?ItemID=C7A7DD4ECD45C946BF6573284EC01164

    “The whole story about Ancient Macedonia sounds undoubtedly very nice. However, there is a great problem, a huge hole of about 2,000 years during which we have neither oral nor written tradition, nor a single scientific argument” – former Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, FOCUS, 31 March 2008

    etc..

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