The EU Enlargement in the Western Balkans has always been a cornerstone theme for ALDA since its foundation in 1999. Established as an initiative of the Council of Europe just like the Local Democracy Agencies it has coordinated and supported ever since, ALDA considers the EU’s political decision of opening the negotiating talks for Albania and North Macedonia only six months after the veto an undeniably positive result.

On March 21st and 22nd, 2020, in fact, the European Council decided to open accession negotiations with the Republic of North Macedonia and the Republic of Albania. The decision was made in light of the progress achieved in reforms by both countries, which now fulfil the conditions set unanimously by the Council in June 2018.

During the discussions of the Council on the enlargement in June 2019, the representatives of France, the Netherlands and Denmark had initially decided to veto the opening of the negotiation for both countries, claiming that the access methodology should be revised and include a stronger focus on credibility as well as a clause of reversibility.

An informal document “non-paper” was then presented by the French President Macron in November 2019 to revise the EU accession process. It resulted with a Revised Enlargement Methodology presented by the Commission on February 5th, 2020. Both North Macedonia and Albania will now formalise their accession following the new methodology, while Serbia and Montenegro will be offered the possibility to opt in.

Read the full statement here.