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After Skopje resolved the long dispute with its neighbor, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and with it, Albania, the green light was given for the start of accession talks leading to membership in the European Union.
“This was a key move towards the rapprochement of the Western Balkans with the EU”, said Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, whose country holds the EU’s next presidency, as congratulations for both countries poured in from the bloc’s top officials.
But what are the next steps to take on the road to full membership? How do candidate countries become members? Before the start of the accession negotiations, the candidate country and the European Commission establish the so-called “pre-accession strategy”, which leads to the drafting of a negotiating framework by both parties. Negotiations cannot begin until the mandate is unanimously approved by the bloc’s member countries.
In this process, the European Commission must be satisfied that the candidate country meets three conditions, the so-called Copenhagen criteria. To start the talks, the candidate country must meet only the political criteria, while the others can be fulfilled during the negotiation phase. The first step involves a rigorous process of examining the candidate country’s legislation to see to what extent it complies with EU laws or the acquis communautaire.
The acquis is divided into 35 negotiating chapters, gathered in six groups, covering every legislative aspect, which individually can only be concluded with the unanimous blessing of all EU member states. Negotiations of several chapters can take place simultaneously. Once all chapters have been closed, the Commission recommends candidate countries for membership and the country signs the Accession Treaty specifying a date for membership, making it an “accession country”.
The treaty must be ratified by all 27 member states and the European Parliament, which must approve the text with an absolute majority. The pace of negotiations depends on the speed of reforms and alignment with EU laws in each country, and their duration may vary. The European Commission describes the progress of the candidate countries in annual reports. For North Macedonia and Albania, the EU executive said in last year’s assessment the two countries were ‘averagely prepared’ in most of the six groups and some progress had been seen. In reality, the closing of the chapters may take several years, as happened with Serbia or Montenegro.
Any EU country can object to closing or opening chapters, and Bulgaria has reserved the right to do so if the bilateral protocol is not implemented by North Macedonia. The fastest to negotiate accession were Austria, Finland and Sweden, in just under two years, while Croatia took just under eight years from the start of negotiations to become a full member of the bloc.
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