[ Western Balkans and EU ]

The EU foreign ministers who met in Brussel yesterday tried to clear the ground for the European Council meeting of EU heads of state and government on 15-16 December 2005 in order to have not too many issues to discuss besides the 2007-2013 budget (cf. this blog, 12.12.2005). Nevertheless, the heads of state and government will also have to re- discuss enlargement issues and especially the progress of Macedonia towards EU accession.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn advocated for granting Macedonia candidate status as

the Commission had already recommended in a communication issued on 9 November 2005 (cf. this

blog, 12.11.2005). In a speech he held on 8

December 2005, Rehn underlined that even if Macedonia does not completely fulfill the economic and the

acquis Copenhaguen criteria, it has made a lot of progress towards democracy and rule

of law:

Only a few years after being on the brink of civil war, the country is a stable democracy. It

is also the only functioning multi-ethnic state in the Balkans, which is an important signal

to the other countries that such a multi-ethnic model can work.

Candidate status for Macedonia would not lead automatically to

accession negotiations and would not have any budgetary implications, but would represent a

strong committment of the EU to start negotiations in a near future.

The French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy rejected the EU Commissions proposal,

arguing that before talking about further enlargement, the EU should define its institutional

and financial framework (that is the 2007-2013 budget). He feared that a decision on

candidate status for Macedonia would send a signal to the French public opinion that a "new

wave of enlargement" was about to take place. According to him, no decision should be taken

this year, and if a decision was taken, it should go through the European Council. This point

of view was supported by France's "no-to-the-Constitutional-treaty"-partner, the Netherlands.

Whether France will veto any decision on Macedonia at this week's EU summit will probably

depend on the agreement reached over budgetary issues (for further details cf. EU Observer, 13.12.2005).