The EU Cannot Agree on the Accession of the Balkan Countries

The Balkan countries received the promise of membership almost 20 years ago In October, the EU summit with the Balkan countries will be held, at which a declaration with guarantees of accession for them should be adopted. The EU member states cannot agree on guarantees for the membership of the Balkan countries, Reuters reports. At the EU summit, they planned to repeat the promise made 18 years ago about unconditional support for the European perspective of Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Northern Macedonia. The declaration is due to be adopted on October 6. The publication, citing two diplomats, reports that two rounds of negotiations were held, but no agreements on this issue could be reached. It is noted that rich EU countries, such as Denmark, France and the Netherlands, are afraid of repeating the situation with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007 and uncontrolled migration, which turned many Brits against the EU. Bulgaria opposes the annexation of Northern Macedonia due to a language dispute –Sofia considers Macedonian a regional variant of Bulgarian. Also, problems with guarantees arose amid the aggravation of the situation between Kosovo and Serbia. According to a senior EU diplomat, the deterioration of the situation in the Balkans is due to the loss of interest in the region in the EU capitals: “They have to misbehave to be noticed.” Austria, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia and the Baltic states, which are in favor of EU enlargement, reproach Germany and France for not being able to put pressure on Bulgaria and convince it to lift its veto, Reuters reports. Earlier, the head of the European Parliament called for the Western Balkans to be admitted to the EU. Albania and North Macedonia are already officially candidate countries, and membership negotiations are continuing with Serbia and Montenegro. Корреспондент