The North Macedonia deal could still go south.
Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s agreement with his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras, to end a decades-old dispute over the Balkan country’s name has been widely praised in Brussels, Washington and EU capitals.
But many hurdles remain to be overcome before the path is clear for Macedonia — or North Macedonia, as it would be known under the deal — to become an EU member.
Among those obstacles is fierce domestic opposition in both Macedonia and Greece. Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov declared Wednesday he would not sign off on the deal. Tsipras’ coalition partners and the main opposition party have also criticized the plan.
Just as importantly, EU leaders are divided over whether to give the green light for membership talks to Macedonia and Albania at a summit at the end of this month.
Broadly speaking, there are two camps in the EU debate. One, led by France and the Netherlands, argues the bloc should focus on reforming itself after Brexit before considering new members. These countries also worry that inviting in countries from the Balkans, with its legacy of war and deep-seated problems of organized crime and corruption, would be a gift to populist opponents of the EU in next year’s European Parliament election.
France and the Netherlands have drafted conclusions for the June 28-29 European Council summit that would push a decision on talks to the second half of next year, according to a text obtained by POLITICO.
The pro-enlargement camp includes top European Commission officials, senior German politicians, and governments from Central and Eastern Europe. They argue the EU must keep Balkan countries in its orbit to counter increased influence in its southern backyard from rival powers.
“If the EU does not manage to make headway in the accession process with these countries, there will be fatal consequences,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a speech in Berlin on Wednesday.
“For a long time now, other powers — Russia, China, Middle Eastern countries, that is, states with completely different notions of order and stability than those held by us Europeans — have sought to fill this gap,” he said.
Pro-enlargement officials also assert that opening membership talks with a country gives the EU greater leverage to push for more democracy and rule of law in candidate countries and bolster pro-EU leaders there.
For pro-EU Balkan leaders such as Zaev who have taken big political risks to get a shot at membership talks, the bloc would be “extremely short-sighted to smack the door back in their faces,” one EU diplomat said.
Talks about talks
At the moment, it looks like the best Macedonia and Albania can hope for from the summit is an agreement to begin preparations for membership talks. But they would have to undertake more reforms before they could actually sit down at the negotiating table.
“I expressly support the conditional opening of accession negotiations with these two countries,” declared Maas, one of a number of EU politicians who helped to broker the deal between the Macedonian and Greek governments.
The deal is meant to finally resolve a 27-year-old dispute, which began when Macedonia seceded from the disintegrating communist Yugoslavia. Greece asserted that the new country’s name implied a claim on a region of northern Greece of the same name and also falsely laid claim to ancient Greek culture. Athens vowed to block Skopje from joining the EU and NATO until the dispute was settled.
Under the terms of the deal, the country would be renamed North Macedonia and this name would be used both internally and externally. But both Skopje and Athens will not find it easy to implement.
Macedonian President Ivanov could block the deal if it gets through parliament. Although he would in theory be compelled to approve it if lawmakers backed it for a second time, he could nevertheless still withhold his signature.
The Macedonian government will also put the deal to a referendum and need a two-thirds majority in parliament to pass the required constitutional changes.
In Greece, Tsipras’ coalition partners have rejected the deal and the main opposition New Democracy has also been critical. That means he will have to cobble together an ad-hoc alliance if he is to get it through parliament.
Commission challenges Council
Also involved in the Macedonia talks was Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who — together with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini — threw down the gauntlet to EU leaders to approve membership talks with Skopje.
“We now look forward to the Council endorsing our recommendation of 17 April to open accession negotiations with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in June,” they said in a joint statement.
But the summit conclusions drafted by France and the Netherlands would not even give the two countries a conditional green light to join Serbia and Montenegro in EU membership talks. Both Albania and Macedonia would be required to undertake more measures to reform their judiciaries, overhaul the public administration and fight crime and corruption.
The European Council would then review progress in a report compiled by the European Commission “during the second semester of 2019,” according to the draft text. Significantly, that review would come after the European Parliament election.
Diplomats said Greece also wants to see Macedonia implement the deal before it gives the go-ahead for the start of membership talks.
“Macedonia under the previous government had been backsliding on rule of law … and so now has catch-up work to do. My take: basically, there’s enough reasons for Greece, the Netherlands and others to kick the decision to next year. And they will,” predicted another EU diplomat.
A third diplomat said much would depend on a meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, at which they aim to hammer out a common position on a range of EU issues ahead of the summit.
Complicating the prospects of a deal at the summit is the stance of Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. His government is a champion of EU membership for Western Balkan countries including Macedonia and Albania. But it is also pushing for a formal suspension of Turkey’s moribund membership talks — and suggesting it will block the entire package of enlargement-related conclusions if it doesn’t get its way, diplomats said.
Florian Eder contributed reporting.