Kukan: North Macedonia can start EU Membership Negotiations this October

The former MEP Edward Kukan says in an interview for the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SFPA) that Macedonia can hope for determination of a date for start of membership negotiations with EU this October. “For years now, North Macedonia fulfilled all fundamental criteria for start of these negotiations, but the EU kept on postponing and dragging their start, something which I find rather demotivating and shameful. This will very probably happen this October, since I can see that French President Emanuel Macron is about to give his approval. Macedonia and Albanian are expected to start these negotiations simultaneously, but I think Albania still has a lot more to do on this field, and I do not think they will start the negotiations this autumn,” Kukan says.