Intergovernmental Conference on the Accession of North Macedonia
The EU delegation was headed by Jan Lipavský, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, and the European Commission was represented by Olivér Várhelyi, Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement. The delegation of North Macedonia was led by Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski. “Today’s launch of the accession negotiation process is a good day for North Macedonia and a good day for the EU. The start of the negotiations is to the mutual benefit of North Macedonia and the EU”, said Minister Lipavský.
North Macedonia is already a close partner of the EU in the Stabilisation and Association Process for the Western Balkans. The EU and North Macedonia stood side by side during the COVID-19 pandemic, and also in the face of Russia's unjustified and unprovoked military aggression against Ukraine, and its impacts on the entire European continent. As stated by the Council on 14 December 2021, the EU delegation welcomed the continued determination of North Macedonia to advance the EU reform agenda and deliver tangible and sustained results.
The EU delegation notes that the Commission has advanced its work to carry out and complete the process of analytical examination of the EU acquis and stands ready to present in due time its results to North Macedonia. On this basis, it invites the Commission to continue to assess the state of preparedness of North Macedonia for opening negotiations in specific areas and identify the issues that will most likely come up in the negotiations, starting with the fundamentals' cluster, which in accordance with the Negotiating Framework, will be opened first once North Macedonia has met the relevant criteria agreed by the Council.
The EU also highly welcomed the fact that North Macedonia has fully aligned with the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy decisions and declarations and encouraged North Macedonia to continue to do so.
See also
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEMENT_22_4602
