EC: MACEDONIA READY FOR ENTRY TALKS

Southeast European Times
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.

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 retur 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".

This content was commissioned for SETimes.com