European Commissioner for Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi has pointed out that the new progress report on North Macedonia at this stage of the EU accession process will set much higher targets and guidelines in the roadmaps to improve results in all areas, reports "Lokalno".
He said this at a meeting with Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Bojan Maricic in Brussels, where they discussed political developments in Macedonia, the progress of the screening process and expectations ahead of the publication of the 2023 Progress Report.
According to Maricic, the EU's plans and commitment to the European perspective of the Western Balkans make EU membership feasible and real for North Macedonia and, as he pointed out, this positive political momentum should be used because this is an opportunity that we provide. I do not know whether this will happen again.
At the meeting with Varhelyi Maricic stressed that EU membership remains a key foreign policy priority for the government of North Macedonia and that every effort is being made to keep this country in the negotiation process and to make progress together with the other countries in the region. .
In July last year in Brussels, North Macedonia started the first phase of negotiations with the EU, but in order to move to the second Skopje must include Bulgarians in the constitution, for which the ruling coalition does not have the necessary support from the opposition VMRO-DPMNE.
In mid-August, a plenary session on this issue began in parliament, but the vote was postponed indefinitely until the ruling coalition secured a two-thirds majority, which requires the votes of representatives of the largest opposition party.
The unofficial deadline for the adoption of the constitutional amendments is the end of this year, so that the second intergovernmental conference of North Macedonia and the EU can take place, after the "screening" planned for December. /BGNES
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