Albania and North Macedonia start EU accession negotiations

BRUSELAS, 19 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Prime Ministers of Albania, Edi Rama, and North Macedonia, Dimitar Kovacevski, traveled to Brussels on Tuesday to mark the start of formal negotiations for accession to the European Union, a process that began after years of blockade and that step to another long road of reforms and compromises before the Twenty-seven decide unanimously on their entry into the club.

"It is your success and it is the success of your citizens, you have worked so hard to get here and shown so much commitment to our values, shown resilience and kept faith in the accession process," the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in a joint appearance without questions in Brussels.

The head of the Community Executive has celebrated the "historic moment" that the formal opening of the negotiations with these two Balkan countries that they are waiting for represents, at the same time as she has highlighted that they have already traveled part of the way towards the EU with "countless" reforms in terms of fight against corruption, rule of law and modernization of the economy.

Kovacevski, for his part, considered that the transition to negotiations is "a new beginning for the region" but also the result of the efforts of a country whose "strategic objective for decades" has been to join the "European family", despite the fact that the wait as a candidate country has lasted 17 years.

The Macedonian Prime Minister has highlighted as one of the main achievements of the negotiation that has allowed to overcome the veto of Bulgaria at the beginning of the negotiations the perspective that opens for the country's language to be recognized as an "official" language of the EU, "no asterisks", when North Macedonia joins.

Rama has also referred to the difficulties of the Albanian candidate process, which has seen 8 years go by before negotiating negotiations can be opened, some "complicated years" in which the European Council repeatedly refused to move on to the next phase and the The country had to face the consequences of a serious earthquake and the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.

"It was a perfect storm that made us stronger," said the Albanian prime minister in the appearance together with Von der Leyen, Kovacevski and the Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, who holds the rotating presidency of the EU this semester. Rama has also underlined the determination of the Albanians who "never gave up the dream of walking the path to the EU".

The first step in the new stage of accession takes the form of two Intergovernmental Conferences this Tuesday in Brussels in which the negotiating framework and the issues that the European Union wants to negotiate before taking the next step are established.

In the case of North Macedonia, however, this first conference is "political" but not formal because the EU is waiting for the agreement adopted over the weekend by its Parliament to unblock the situation to be transferred to the Constitution, when the contacts will officially begin.

In parallel, the European Commission also begins this Tuesday the work with the two Balkan countries to accompany them in the process and help them "familiarize themselves with the rights and obligations" of the acquis communautaire, Von der Leyen has indicated, referring to the set of rules European Unions, international agreements and other treaties that involve all member states and are the basis for the functioning of the EU.

Along with this diagnostic phase, Brussels "will continue to closely accompany" the negotiating teams of Albania and North Macedonia in key areas to advance towards the European project and has given as an example the forthcoming entry of Albania into the Civil Protection Mechanism of the EU that assists countries in the face of catastrophes or the negotiation that will begin "very soon" with the Macedonians for an agreement with Frontex.