Bundestag ratifies Macedonia’s NATO Accession Protocol

The Bundestag ratified on Thursday Macedonia’s NATO Accession Protocol, but MPs traded accusations over Macedonia’s road to EU membership negotiations, Deutsche Welle reported the same day. Opposition MP Juergen Trittin made the situation tenser by saying that there was a clash within the frameworks of the German government itself over Macedonia’s integration path. He added that he suspected the German Chancellery and CDU wanted to postpone the debate on the matter until New Democracy came to power in Greece so that it blocked Macedonia in the EU. He also reiterated that the European Commission had made a clear recommendation about a start of recommendations. Criticising that policy, the MP asked whether somebody wanted Macedonia to join only NATO, but not the EU, too, and whether its citizens should be treated as “second-class Europeans”.