North Macedonia’s Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani said on February 28 that the European Union should urgently unblock the EU integration process with Skopje and Tirana in the light of the situation in Ukraine following the Russian invasion.

The EU gave its formal approval to begin accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania in March 2020, but Bulgaria vetoed the launch of the talks with Skopje at the end of 2020 and in 2021 due to language and history issues, which automatically blocked the Albanian accession process as the two countries have been coupled so far.

“The EU should urgently unblock the start of negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania and must not allow the Western Balkans to remain an open issue,” Osmani said in a TV show on 24mk.

Osmani underlined that the EU should now see the consequences of the possible destabilisation of the region, or the danger of ‘third forces’ entering the Balkans, if the EU accession process is delayed.

In the meantime, EU officials expressed support for Kyiv after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to the EU for urgent accession under special procedures on February 28. This was also backed by the presidents of most of the eastern EU member states, who published an open letter on the issue on February 28. 

Four states from the Western Balkans — Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia — are already EU accession countries but only Montenegro and Serbia have so far opened accession negotiations. 

No state has joined the EU since Croatia, nearly a decade ago in 2013. The accession process has slowed, due to a combination of the Western Balkans countries’ relative poverty compared to even the poorest EU member states, and the preoccupation of EU members with other issues such as the migrant crisis and Brexit. With the prospect of EU accession arguably the most important incentive for reform in Central and Southeast Europe regions, there have been repeated warnings of backsliding on democracy and the fight against corruption as the process has slowed.

However, worsening divisions in Bosnia, which pre-date the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and fears of a broader destabilisation in the region, where far-right groups in particular have backed the Russian cause, have prompted European politicians to look at ways to increase engagement with the region.