Throughout Macedonia's three-decade-long European integration process, the almost unchanged encouraging message from the EU and the Brussels bureaucracy is that "now is the momentum of enlargement that the country should not miss." In "translation," this usually means that Macedonia should make new concessions for some blackmail from neighboring EU member states, which are by no means within the framework of the Copenhagen criteria for the Union's enlargement. Otherwise, despite all the "momentum" encouragement for candidate countries, mainly from the region that Brussels has called the Western Balkans, the EU has not admitted a new member state for 13 years.
And now there is "momentum" again, that is, for geopolitical reasons the EU declares that they want to activate the enlargement process with rapid negotiations and admission of Ukraine and Moldova. This new, who knows which one in a row, "momentum" is now being offered to the countries of the Western Balkans, as a chance that they should not miss for the EU, even though Macedonia has been living with candidate status for more than 20 years, has made degrading national residues and is implementing social reforms that are certainly ahead of the countries whose rapid integration is now presented as a chance.
But in the new wave of enthusiasm for EU enlargement, the European Commission administration is realizing that it has lost its institutional memory, that is, it has “forgotten” the administrative procedures for admitting new members. Namely, Euronews recently revealed that the European Commission department responsible for enlargement remains without the capacity to simultaneously manage accession negotiations with multiple candidate countries, and the biggest pressure is yet to come.
"It is not only the candidate countries that are struggling to cope with the huge workload. The Commission has lost the institutional memory and capacity it had during the last wave of enlargement," an official told Euronews on condition of anonymity, recalling that the EU has not admitted new members for 13 years, and negotiations with candidate countries are dragging on.
The Euronews article focuses mainly on the European Commission's administrative problems in the enlargement negotiation processes with Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova. It even states that there has been a "diversion of resources, especially of officials working on the Western Balkan countries that have not made significant progress recently."
It is logical to conclude that Macedonia is not a "burden" for the European Commission administration, because the negotiations are practically not moving, due to the condition from Bulgaria for constitutional amendments built into the draft negotiating framework, known as the "French proposal", completely non-standard and not applied to other EU member states or candidates.
But for the EU, it is a political problem, which it imposed on Macedonia, and now it is trying to present it as an administrative problem. If a few years ago Macedonia was considered one of the most prepared candidate countries, today, according to the perception of Euronews, the attention and resources of the European Commission are focused on countries that have made real progress. Macedonia is not among the priorities because there are no negotiation clusters opened; the more others progress, the more Brussels' administrative resources are directed towards them. The unspoken but assumed message for Macedonia from that text about the EC's administrative challenges is that it risks falling further behind if the process is not unblocked, while the other candidates are already entering the final stages of negotiations. Or at least that Macedonia is no longer in the group of candidates that dictate the pace of enlargement. At the moment, the European Commission's focus is on Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova, while Macedonia remains outside the main wave of accelerated enlargement due to the stagnation in the accession process.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of European Integration of Macedonia, Bekim Sali , in the context of the EC's administrative challenges in the EU enlargement process and some hidden messages for Macedonia, when asked by MKD.mk, emphasizes that " our task is to deliver results, and to believe that the European Commission will continue to be a strong and efficient partner in this process ."
"Regarding information about possible challenges with administrative capacities in the European Commission, it is most appropriate for the European Union institutions themselves to provide a position. What I can confirm is that in the past period we have had excellent, intensive and constructive cooperation with the Directorate-General for Enlargement and Eastern Neighbourhood (DG ENEST) and with the Delegation of the European Union in Skopje, especially in the implementation of the Reform Agenda and in all activities related to the accession process."
The fact is that the enlargement policy is gaining new momentum and is encompassing an increasing number of candidate countries, which naturally brings with it the need to further strengthen the administrative capacities of the European institutions.
However, we are convinced that the European Union will timely adapt its resources and institutional capacities to its own strategic commitment to enlargement. Macedonia remains fully committed to fulfilling the reforms and obligations of the accession process. Our task is to deliver results, and we trust that the European Commission will continue to be a strong and efficient partner in this process, in the interest of the credibility of the enlargement policy and of all candidate countries.", says Minister Sali to MKD.mk.
After the formal start of Macedonia's negotiations with the EU in 2022, not a single cluster of the negotiating framework has been opened, as this is conditioned by the non-reciprocal inclusion of Bulgarians in the Macedonian Constitution. Such conditioning has no support among the Macedonian public, so the negotiations are practically in stagnation, although work is being done to fulfill the conditions of the Reform Agenda. The condition for constitutional amendments, on the other hand, is incorporated into the draft negotiating framework with an internationally legally disputed document – the protocol of an intergovernmental meeting of Macedonia and Bulgaria.
"Protocols are minutes of meetings of a joint intergovernmental session signed by foreign ministers. These minutes are not an agreement, they are not ratified in the Parliament, documents without obligations like those arising from the Agreement on Good Neighborly Relations between Macedonia and Bulgaria. They do not have the form of an international agreement, they do not have the same international legal force as the Agreement on Good Neighborly Relations ," says university professor Vasko Naumovski , who was both a diplomat and Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration.
He emphasizes that now we only have EU Council conclusions welcoming the signing of those protocols and the constitutional amendments.
"The conclusions of the EU Council refer to obligations undertaken by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Macedonia. But the negotiating framework does not include the protocol, but only the Good Neighborhood Agreement with Bulgaria. The negotiating framework is the basis for negotiations and does not call for changes to the Constitution. But EU representatives refer to the obligations undertaken by the protocols, for constitutional amendments. That document has not been ratified by the Parliament. Can a Minister of Foreign Affairs undertake obligations to amend the Constitution in such a form, a protocol ? , Naumovski rhetorically asks in a television appearance on Sitel.
He pointed out that the protocol requires new concessions beyond the Good Neighborhood Agreement, especially with regard to the conclusions of the historical commission.
"Statements by senior Bulgarian politicians who say that the entry of Bulgarians into the Constitution is not the last step, but that the historical commission will be required to make decisions that will satisfy the Bulgarian side. And there, decisions are made by consensus and no one can pressure our members to vote. Then the Bulgarians will set a new condition related to the decisions of the historical commission , " explains Naumovski about the pitfalls in the protocol, emphasizing that the constitutional amendments are irreversible, so a delayed effect of those amendments should be sought.
"The EC was creative and we should be creative. The change to the Constitution should be the last concession until Macedonia's full membership in the EU. The EU's approach in the case of Macedonia is non-traditional . We should prevent a new veto on these topics , " says Professor Vasko Naumovski.
Source: MKD.mk
