site.btaEU Rapporteur Calls North Macedonia Reliable Partner, but Says Reforms Still Needed

North Macedonia is a reliable partner, especially when it comes to foreign and security policy, but reforms are still needed for the country to move forward on the path to EU membership, European Parliament (EP) Rapporteur on North Macedonia Thomas Waitz (Greens, Austria) said on Wednesday at a joint press conference in Strasbourg with Andreas Schieder (S&D, Austria) and Ondrej Kolar (EPP, Czechia), rapporteurs on Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina, respectively.

The EP’s annual report on North Macedonia’s progress towards EU accession was adopted during a plenary session in Strasbourg earlier on Wednesday. The report was voted with 461 in favour, 121 against and 107 abstained out of 689 EP members who voted.

Waitz said it is the first report on North Macedonia since 2022. “It is important that we voted for this report with a well-founded two-thirds majority,” he noted.

Repeating a remark which he made during Tuesday’s debate, he said that North Macedonia applied for EU membership 20 years ago and was once a frontrunner together with Slovenia, but has not officially started accession talks yet, which is why “a lot of disappointment was created or has been appearing in the country”.

“If North Macedonia will finally adopt the constitutional amendments that safeguard the rights of minorities – additional minorities – in the country, effective negotiations and opening of chapters can start immediately,” Waitz pledged. He was referring to Bulgaria’s insistence that Bulgarians in North Macedonia should be added to the country’s Constitution to ensure that their rights are protected.

“The report is also talking about reforms [that are] still needed, situations in the country that are still far from the European standards. It is talking about rule of law, independent justice, fight against corruption,” the Austrian MEP said.

He also highlighted the need for higher environmental standards, noting that North Macedonia still needs to deal “with a lack of waste management, with a lack of wastewater management, with, unfortunately, still a lot of air pollution, which is something citizens complain a lot about”.