Macedonia: ready for EU accession?

posted by Julia on 2008/01/14 20:36

[ Macedonia ]

The Macedonian think tank Analytica has recently published a number of short analyses on the Macedonian preparations for EU accession. According to the Macedonian standpoint, Macedonia is ready for EU accession - especially since several laws in the field of the judiciary and minority protection were signed in December 2007. The Slovene presidency in the first half of 2008 is also seen as a chance to finally get a start date for accession negotiations (cf. Balkan Insight).

This feeling of "readiness" is reflected in the introduction of the Analytica report on "EU Approximation in Macedonia: Progress in Science and Research and Information Society" (pdf, September 2007):

"In the aftermath of the 2004 enlargement, in the spring 2005 the Draft Constitutional Treaty was rejected by French and Dutch voters on national referenda. (...) This input from the public quickly entered the corridors of Brussels. Soon enlargement policy assumed a stricter face (...). Concepts such as ?rigorous conditionality?, ?absorption capacity? and ?enlargement fatigue? became integral to the enlargement debate and are used equally by EU officials and national politicians.
For those states, which remained outside the EU yet maintain membership aspirations, this signalled a shift away from past enlargement practices and towards a more demanding process of accession. Macedonia is among these states. Though the EU committed itself to integration of the Western Balkans states through the Thessalonica Agenda of 2003, the process is rather slow."

"Analytica" is more critical when it comes to evaluating Public Administration Reform (pdf, July 2007) and human resources management in the Macedonian civil service (pdf, December 2007).

And in its report on regional co-operation ("Has regional cooperation led to the establishment of Balkania: Europe?s Southeastern Dimension?", pdf, September 2007), after stating that the EU should do more for regional co-operation in SEE, the analysts rightly remarks that:

"But, of course we should not forget that no matter how willing and able the EU is to support regional cooperation, finally the concrete regional initiatives have to come from the countries in the region. Even though the future of the Balkan region depends on many internationally determined circumstances, there are lots of things depending exactly on political will and moreover political maturity of the Balkan governments."

Thus, the start of EU accession negotiations will not depend only on the EU, but also on the Macedonian government and the Macedonian society's readiness for reforms and changes. For further inspiration, you can read the EU progress report on Macedonia (click here for pdf) or a summary (click here for pdf) by the NGO Swisspeace.


Antworten

< previous Posting next >

<< previous Topic

SEE-EU

This weblog is a forum for discussion on the political and social processes linked to EU integration in the Western Balkans. We would also like to use this space to create a virtual network of researchers on this topic. You are most welcome to contribute to this weblog with comments, postings, links, or photos. Please use the "add comment" function at the end of each posting!
All photos by the Photo Arts Collective of Kosovo. First photo by Burim Myftiu (Swimming olympiade in Klina). Second photo by Mimoza. Third photo by Dashmir Izairi.
> RSS Feed RSS 2.0 feed for Kakanien Revisited Blog SEE-EU

Calendar

Blogroll

Links