Balkan Government Under Pressure as EU Progress Faces Skepticism
EU Talks Delay May Topple North Macedonia Cabinet, Premier Says
(Bloomberg) --
A failure to get a date for European Union accession talks this summer may trigger the collapse of North Macedonia’s government as some member states object to expanding the bloc, the country’s prime minister said.
That would pave the way for nationalists and pro-Russian forces to increase their influence in the Balkans, the continent’s most volatile region, Zoran Zaev said in Brussels, according to a government statement emailed late Wednesday.
The former Yugoslav state got a green light in February to join NATO after solving a decades-long dispute with Greece. The European Commission said last week the country has made sufficient reforms for negotiations to begin. The final decision is in the hands of member states, some of whom are reluctant to expand the bloc further.
“If the EU doesn’t deliver, the government will most likely fall,” Zaev said. “If we have to go to snap elections, the economy will stop.”
At a meeting of EU government envoys in Brussels on Wednesday, countries including France, the Netherlands and Denmark objected to the opening of accession talks at this stage, two diplomats familiar with the matter said.
Other countries including Spain and Estonia, were also skeptical, with some focusing their objections on Albania and others on North Macedonia, which both got a nod from the Commission, said the officials, who asked not to be named, as deliberations were private.
Germany, which generally supports the “European perspective” of the Western Balkans, refrained from explicitly backing the sign off to opening accession talks this month, pending a vote at the country’s parliament on the matter, the officials said.
Zaev’s ruling coalition took office in 2017 after ousting Nikola Gruevski, a former premier and head of the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party who has since fled to Hungary to avoid a jail sentence for abuse of power.
Russia, which opposes NATO’s expansion in the Balkans, has accused the U.S. and the EU of intervening in North Macedonia’s domestic affairs by helping Zaev reach the name deal with Greece.
A disappointment over EU membership would give hope to “the citizens supporting nationalism and radicalism, and this isn’t good -- neither for the country nor for the region,” Zaev said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Slav Okov in Sofia at sokov@bloomberg.net;Alexander Weber in Brussels at aweber45@bloomberg.net;Viktoria Dendrinou in Brussels at vdendrinou@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net, Michael Winfrey, Andrea Dudik
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