Page 26 - BNE_magazine_11_2019

26 I Cover story bne November 2019
“Firstly, no state has a chance of joining the EU before 2027, which is enough time to reform the EU, and France is using the enlargement policy to force the other EU member states to take part in the debate on the EU’s internal reform. Secondly, the European Commission has recommended the Council of the EU to open negotiations with the two countries, and it is difficult to expect that another document prepared by the European Commission will differ significantly from the reports published in May, which served as grounds for the positive recommendation. Raising this issue should be viewed as playing for time.”
Denmark and the Netherlands also had reservations about opening accession talks, while France, Germany and Italy were against treating Albania and North Macedonia differently. They now face another months-long wait, with the EU planning to revert to the issue before the Zagreb summit in May 2020, according to the head of the European Council Donald Tusk.
The decision caused deep disappointment in both countries, which have been seeking for years to progress their bids for accession to the bloc. Politicians
in both countries have made difficult, unpopular and politically costly reforms to meet the conditions set by Brussels. The country formally known as “Macedonia” changed its name to “North Macedonia” to end a decades- long dispute with neighbouring Greece that had blocked its accession to both the EU and Nato. The government
in Tirana has overhauled the justice system and introduced vetting for judges, a move that faced fierce resistance from politicians that had benefitted for years from their influence over politically connected judges and prosecutors. Tirana also launched
a massive operation to wipe out large-scale cannabis cultivation.
Albania has been a candidate country for just over five years, but North Macedonia has been waiting to progress its membership bid ever since gaining candidate status back in 2005. Without the taint of organised crime that has bogged down Albania’s progress, Skopje
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also had higher hopes of the October EU summit and the blow of yet another delay was arguably heavier.
The impact on domestic politics was immediate. Just two days after the summit ended, Macedonian Prime
the “dark path of isolation, nationalism, divisions and conflict”.
However, the latest poll – based on surveys immediately before the EU summit – put the conservative opposition party VMRO-DPMNE
“The decision caused deep disappointment in both countries, which have been seeking for years to join the EU”
Minister Zoran Zaev announced
he would stand down. An interim government will take over in January
to prepare for a snap general election in March. Zaev – who led efforts to strike
a deal with Greece and pushed it through the parliament despite strong opposition – had already warned before the summit that he would resign if
no date for talks was agreed, despite warnings that this could plunge North Macedonia back into political instability.
In a strongly worded address to citizens, Zaev talked of a "great injustice" at
the summit. "The European Union
did not deliver as it had promised.
We did everything that was asked
from us. We delivered results on reforms. We resolved disputes with neighbours. And they did not fulfil their promise and did not deliver,” he said on October 20.
“[W]e are victims of a historic mistake of the EU and this causes a great deal of bitterness among all of us. I am disappointed and mad and I know that the people feel the same. Therefore,
I feel the citizens’ anger and burden as yet another scar.
“Personally, I see this failed promise as an extraordinary bad and unjust act of the Union, and at the same time, I see it as a very grave matter. That is how
I interpret it.”
Saying he will seek a new mandate
in the March general election, Zaev presented the choice for citizens
as being between “the true road of democratic and European values” and
six percentage points ahead of Zaev’s Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), most likely setting the country up for tortuous coalition talks post- election. Last time North Macedonia held an election, VMRO-DPMNE was also ahead but failed to form a coalition, and only after six months of talks between parties did the SDSM strike
a deal with the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), one of the parties representing the ethnic Albanian minority.
While welcoming Zaev’s government’s efforts to progress towards EU accession, voters appear fed up with the continuing nepotism and inefficacy in the government and state companies – the SDSM’s presidential candidate Stevo Pendarovski had a first round upset when voters took out their frustration on him, though he eventually secured victory in the second round. Zaev
has since launched “Operation
Broom” aimed at a clean sweep of state institutions, but it remains to be seen whether this will swing things in the polls next spring.
Meanwhile in Albania, the opposition parties – which have a deeply antagonistic relationship with Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialists – turned on the government after its failure to deliver
at the summit. This gave fresh ammunition to opposition calls for Rama to resign with Democratic Party leader Lulzim Basha claiming that “Europe rejected Edi Rama, not Albania”. The leader of the Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI) called the decision