Waitz Asks Varhelyi Questions about North Macedonia and ‘Guarantees’ Issue

The negotiating framework that includes all issues that need to be addressed by North Macedonia on the EU path is a guarantee that there will be no new conditions, Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi assessed while answering a question from the EP’s new Rapporteur for North Macedonia, Austrian MEP Thomas Waitz, who asked, in the frames of the Foreign Affairs Committee, where the Reports on the progress by candidates were presented, a series of questions about Skopje’s integration process.

Criticizing the EU by saying that despite the concessions made by North Macedonia, negotiations still hadn’t started, the Rapporteur asked whether the organization could deliver guarantees if the unanimous model of decision-making remained. The Austrian MEP also warned over Euroscepticism in the country and the high percentage of citizens who don’t believe the country will ever join the European family.

The MEP asked, “How can we, as the European Union, give guarantees to the current government, there was a government change, that has a majority that is close to constitutional majority? They could even deliver theoretically on this new constitutional change. They could deliver to include Bulgarian and other minorities. But how can we guarantee them that next months or in two months or in three months, there’s not another bilateral issue coming from Bulgaria or, I don’t know, from other Member-States again blocking their accession process?”.

The Commissioner responded by saying, “How can we guarantee that there are no further requests? The very reason for having a negotiating framework that includes all the issues that need to be addressed for North Macedonia to become a member-state was the solution to avoid this. This is why now that we have a negotiating framework, it must contain all the elements that are necessary to be done in terms of reforms. And I agree with you the current government is very close to, it’s not at, but very close to constitutional majority. And I do hope that they will reach out for this opportunity, unique opportunity because it is clear that they can then move on very quickly”.