Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia are requesting that bilateral disputes not hinder the progress of candidate countries toward EU membership, pointing to disagreements between Croatia and Montenegro and the dispute between North Macedonia and Bulgaria as examples.
On Wednesday, the 3 countries submitted a joint non-paper ahead of the meeting of the EU’s General Affairs Council, calling for disputes to be resolved through direct dialogue outside the accession process, Vecernji List has reported. The initiative has come at a time when Montenegro is nearing the conclusion of accession talks.