Talks approved for two Balkan nations to join EU

BRUSSELS — European affairs ministers agreed Tuesday to allow Albania and North Macedonia to begin European Union membership talks, paving the way for the bloc’s leaders to sign off on the move that could end years of setbacks and disappointment for the two Balkan nations.

“We reached a political decision to open accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia,” Croatia’s European Affairs minister, Andreja Metelko Zgombic, said after chairing a meeting of the ministers held by video conference.

She described the decision as “good news, historic news, for those two countries” and said EU leaders were likely to rubber stamp it on Thursday.

No date was announced for the start of the membership negotiations, which can take several years.

Albania and North Macedonia were meant to begin talks last year on joining the

EU. French President Emmanuel Macron blocked the action and said he would continue to do so until the process for allowing countries into the 27nation bloc had been reformed.

Macron did so despite warnings that further delays to the countries’ membership quests could undermine stability in the volatile Balkans region. North Macedonia’s leader reacted by stepping down and calling a snap parliamentary election. The European Commission later revised the accession process for North Macedonia and Albania to respond to French and Dutch objections.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama hailed the decision to launch membership negotiations as “beautiful news, though delayed not because of us.”

Rama pledged they would continue to fulfill the required steps “until we enter and sit in the EU’s living room.”

“There is a long path and the road is still upward and the work ahead of us is big,” he said.

“There will be a celebration day only when we liberate ourselves from this invisible enemy,” Rama said in reference to the coronavirus epidemic.

North Macedonia, previously known as Macedonia, has been a candidate for EU membership since 2005, but a longrunning dispute with Greece over the country’s name stood in the way of accession negotiations.