2024-02-19 10:14:03
Academician Nikolay Denkov discussed Skopje’s progress towards the EU with Macedonian Prime Minister Talat Xhaferi
“Anti-European” and to blame for the fact that Tirana still cannot start its negotiations with the EU. This is how Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama described Bulgaria at the Munich Security Conference this weekend.
“Albania’s accession to the EU is blocked because of disagreements between North Macedonia and Bulgaria. Using your place in the EU as leverage against your neighbors is the most anti-European thing one can imagine,” Rama complained.
This is not the first time he has attacked Bulgaria. In August last year, he compared the Bulgarian policy towards North Macedonia with the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
With its veto on North Macedonia’s EU membership negotiations at the end of 2019, Bulgaria effectively blocked Albania as well, because the two countries were going as a package. With the signing of the so-called A French proposal between Sofia and Skopje in 2022, however, the process was blocked and on July 19, Albania then held its first intergovernmental conference in Brussels. And it was she who launched its negotiations for membership.
However, Albania cannot start them yet. But this
nothing to do with the dispute between Sofia and Skopje,
and because it was blocked by Greece at the end of 2023. The reason is a dispute between the two countries since May of this year. because of the arrested ethnic Greek mayoral candidate in Albania Fredi Belleri. He was detained 2 days before the local vote. Greece has repeatedly called on Albania to allow Belleri to be sworn in after winning the vote, and described the incident as politically and ethnically motivated.
Last in January, again because of this dispute, Greece also blocked the defense agreement between the EU and Albania, and proposed to put North Macedonia in its place.
“The EU allows its members to use their place in the bloc as leverage against their neighbours. This is the most anti-European thing one can imagine”, commented Rama in Munich.
But when asked if his country will have problems with Greece on the way to the EU, he answered sarcastically: “Problems? No, we love Greece. I did not come to Munich to disturb my Greek friends. They want to see me, hear my voice when I say something, but you can’t scold us.”
Selfie with Rama from the same conference, published on his profile the co-chairman of PP Kiril Petkov. However, it is not clear what the two talked to each other. At the same forum, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov met with his Macedonian colleague Talat Jaferi. “The two discussed the next steps in the implementation of the agreement between Skopje and the EU, which
will open the way for our neighbor to EU membership”,
reported by the government.
Deputy Prime Minister Maria Gabriel also had a series of meetings in Munich in recent days. She met with the Prime Ministers of Estonia and Ireland – Kaia Kalas and Leo Varadkar, with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Austria, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, etc. The forum in Munich was also attended by the Bulgarian Ministers of Defense Todor Tagarev, Ministers of Finance Asen Vassilev and others.