EC: Macedonia ready for entry talks

15/10/2009

While noting that the Western Balkan countries and Turkey have still a lot more to do, the European Commission said Wednesday that Macedonia had made "convincing progress" and is ready to begin entry talks with Brussels.

(European Voice, VOA - 15/10/09; European Commission, AFP, AP, Reuters, DPA, Bloomberg, FT, BBC, Guardian, Euobserver, Euronews, AKI, Beta, B92, MIA, ANA-MPA - 14/10/09)

EU Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn speaks during a press conference on the progress reports Wednesday (October 14th). [Getty Images]

Four years after joining Croatia and Turkey as an official EU candidate country, the European Commission (EC) told Macedonia on Wednesday (October 14th) that it is ready to begin its accession talks with Brussels.

"The country has made convincing progress and substantially addressed the key reform priorities," EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said, as he presented the EC's annual reports on candidate and potential candidate countries' accession progress.

On the basis of that conclusion, the commission recommended that the 27-nation bloc open accession negotiations with Skopje. EU member-state leaders will take a decision on that matter during their summit in December.

However, the long-running name dispute between Greece and Macedonia remains a major obstacle to Skopje's EU bid. Insisting that its northern neighbour's name implies potential territorial claims on its own province of Macedonia, Greece has threatened to block membership until a solution is reached.

Rehn voiced hope that the EC's recommendation will serve "as a very strong encouragement to settle the name issue and thus remove this from the agenda, and I trust that the government in Skopje gets this message as well".

While Macedonia is still awaiting a starting date for its entry talks, Croatia's are nearing the final phase, with only seven out of 35 negotiation chapters yet to be opened, Brussels said. But it also urged Zagreb to continue implementing the EU-required reforms, particularly in the areas of judicial and public administration reform, the fight against corruption, minority rights and refugee returns.

"If Croatia meets all outstanding benchmarks in time, the accession negotiations could be concluded next year," the EC said.

Turkey, which began its membership talks along with Croatia back in 2005, is further behind in the process, with only a third of its negotiating chapters opened to date.

While praising Ankara for its efforts to normalise relations with Armenia, as well as for its recently announced initiative aimed at resolving the Kurdish question, the EC criticised Turkey for failing to make progress towards normalising relations with Cyprus.

"We call on the leaders of the two communities in Cyprus to bring the settlement talks to a successful end as soon as possible, and on Turkey to contribute in concrete terms to such a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus issue," Rehn said Wednesday.

Potential EU candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia are making uneven progress and have a lot more to do to meet EU requirements, according to the commission.

"The rule of law, in particular the fight against corruption and organised crime, remains a major challenge which the enlargement countries need to address at an early stage," Rehn said. "Plenty of reform work is going [to be needed] to address the problem, and the commission will continue to use all instruments of the enlargement process to help them in this endeavour."

The EU executive arm voiced particular concern about the continuing nationalist rhetoric in BiH and the deteriorating political situation in the country, which "urgently needs to speed up key reforms".