Poland and Germany on Friday called for continued progress on European Union membership talks for western Balkan states hoping to join the bloc, rejecting France’s position that it shouldn’t accept more members until it handles its own issues.
IT WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN OCTOBER
“I share Macron’s view that the EU’s working mechanisms must be improved,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a press conference concluding the Western Balkan summit in Poznan, Poland. “I don’t see that as an abandonment of the accession talks.”
EU governments failed in June to make good on a promise to open membership talks with North Macedonia and Albania, which face further delays to their hopes of joining the bloc due to resistance from northern Europe.
The 28 EU states have agreed to take “a clear and substantive decision” on the two hopefuls no later than October, but Macron insisted that first the bloc needs to find better mechanisms for finding agreement among its current members.
“I look with optimism to autumn,” Merkel said, referring to North Macedonia.
The bloc faced unprecedented days-long negotiations this week in an effort to decide on candidates for the EU’s top jobs.
However, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Johannes Hahn told Reuters he believed it would not be right to stop accession talks. “When our partner countries deliver, the EU also has to deliver. That is a question of the credibility of the EU,” Hahn said. “We must leave no vacuum in this region by hesitant behavior, which would certainly not be used by our competitors such as Russia, Turkey or China in our interest,” he added.