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BRUSSELS — North Macedonia’s Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani has called on the EU to accelerate the integration of the six Western Balkan countries – or risk a return of ethnic conflicts in the region.
“North Macedonia is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural… The only narrative that has subordinated these contradictory narratives and become the glue of all these narratives is the European Union,” Osmani told POLITICO during a visit to Brussels.
“All groups, social, cultural, religious, ethnic, all share the same ideal: the EU,” added the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
All six countries in the region – North Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo – have applied for EU membership, with varying progress.
All countries except Kosovo were granted candidate status but in most cases accession negotiations took place. have been at a standstill for years.
Brussels opened accession negotiations with North Macedonia in July 2022, and the country is currently going through the EU selection process, on which meetings will be held until the end of the year.
The European Commission said in November that the selection process it was going “smoothly”, but that Skopje still had progress to make in eradicating corruption and organized crime and reforming its public administration.
Osmani – himself a Macedonian from the Albanian ethnic group – warned of the potentially devastating consequences of a failure of EU enlargement.
In North Macedonia, the 2001 armed conflict between ethnic Albanians and the Macedonian government ended with a peace agreement that enshrined more political rights for minorities and decentralization of government – which Osmani described as a positive and “functional” counter-example to the Dayton agreements in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Herzegovina.
But the risk of ethnic conflicts is always present.
“There has been a debate about whether multi-ethnic democracies can work in the Balkans,” the foreign minister said.
“If we fail, because the EU is not assertive enough, I think it will be the start of a domino effect throughout the region,” he added. “And the message (will be) that in the Balkans, multi-ethnic democracies cannot work.”
However, the region’s European prospects face serious political difficulties. After the victory of far-right Eurosceptic leader Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and the threats of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to block accession negotiations with Ukrainethere is a risk that the momentum towards EU enlargement will run out of steam again.
To get around these obstacles, Osmani offers a pragmatic solution: a three-step process for gradual integration.
Candidate countries would first gain “observer” status at the EU table at Council meetings, then gain access to the internal market and eventually become eligible to receive EU money from the funds. structural and cohesion – without becoming full member countries.
Currently, “the approach is all or nothing,” Osmani said, adding: “why don’t we just start… integration into the EU before full membership?”
