Goal of Opening Negotiations as Soon as Possible Remains, Says Geer

For now, the EU isn’t thinking about what it will do with the case of North Macedonia if the country fails to open negotiations due to the bilateral dispute with Bulgaria. In a situation of increasingly fiercer rhetoric between Skopje and Sofia and a prediction from the Bulgarian President that the dispute will last years, the only message from EU diplomats is that the country implements reforms for its own good. During Wednesday’s presentation of the Report on the country’s progress, the EU Delegation’s Head, Ambassador David Geer, stated that the EU was only thinking about one thing – a start of negotiations by the end of the year.  He also said he didn’t want to speculate about what would be being done in one or two years. Geer added that the goal of opening negotiations as soon as possible remained, with the hope that that would be done by December. That goal, the EU Delegation Head stressed, hasn’t changed.