European Union flag.
(dpa) The EU is starting the long-stalled process for accession negotiations with the Balkan countries North Macedonia and Albania with intergovernmental conferences this Tuesday. The representation of the 27 member states officially announced the dates for the two meetings during the night. A written decision-making process to adopt the guidelines for the EU accession talks had previously been completed.
The two so-called negotiation frameworks are now to be officially presented to the two candidate countries this Tuesday at the conferences in Brussels. They are a prerequisite for the EU Commission to be able to start with the “screenings”. In these procedures, the authority examines the extent to which the national law of the candidate country deviates from EU legislation and requires appropriate adjustments for different areas.
The commission can then make recommendations for the opening of so-called negotiation chapters. In order for them to be implemented, however, a unanimous decision by the EU member states is required again. Overall, the negotiation process can take many years and can be stopped again if problems arise. The EU began accession talks with Turkey in 2005. However, these were put on hold again a few years ago because of developments in the area of the rule of law that Brussels considered unacceptable.
The intergovernmental conferences to start the accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania were supposed to have been organized in 2020. However, the EU country Bulgaria blocked the necessary decisions because of a dispute with North Macedonia. Among other things, it dealt with the interpretation of the partly shared history and the rights of the ethnic Bulgarians in North Macedonia. Only last Sunday did both sides sign a protocol to settle the dispute.