{"id":15439,"date":"2022-06-16T11:24:20","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T10:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/?p=15439"},"modified":"2022-06-16T16:31:32","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T15:31:32","slug":"edi-rama-no-eu-membership-talks-soon-and-its-bulgarias-fault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/edi-rama-no-eu-membership-talks-soon-and-its-bulgarias-fault\/","title":{"rendered":"Edi Rama : \u00ab\u00a0No EU membership talks soon, and it\u2019s Bulgaria\u2019s fault\u00a0\u00bb"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In POLITICO interview, Edi Rama also voices support for Macron\u2019s political community \u2014 and understanding for Serbia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"BELGIUM-EU-ALBANIA\"
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The Albanian leader also said he supports French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s idea of a European Political Community | Pool photo by John thys via Getty Images<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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BY\u00a0LOUISE GUILLOT<\/div>\n
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June 15, 2022<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said he doesn\u2019t expect an EU summit next week to clear the way for his country to begin membership talks and placed the blame on Bulgaria.<\/p>\n

All EU governments\u00a0agreed<\/a>\u00a0back in March 2020 to give Albania and North Macedonia the green light to start membership talks. But negotiations have yet to get underway after Bulgaria insisted it wanted concessions from North Macedonia in bilateral disputes touching on language, history and identity.<\/p>\n

Although Sofia\u2019s blockade applies only to North Macedonia, the EU has favored handling the membership bids of Albania and North Macedonia together \u2014 so Albania is effectively blocked too.<\/p>\n

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The Western Balkan nations\u2019 predicament is a timely warning about the vagaries of EU accession for Ukraine, which is pushing in the midst of Russia\u2019s war to become an EU membership candidate at next week\u2019s summit. The EU gave that status to North Macedonia in\u00a02005<\/a>\u00a0and Albania in\u00a02014<\/a>, yet has failed to even begin talks with either country.<\/p>\n

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz\u00a0visited Bulgaria<\/a>\u00a0last week in an effort to overcome Sofia\u2019s blockade ahead of the forthcoming summit in Brussels, which takes place on Thursday and Friday of next week. But, in an interview with POLITICO, Rama made clear he was pessimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have any expectation. I think nothing will happen. Albania and North Macedonia will not formally open talks to have accession,\u201d he said, sitting in a brown leather armchair in his office in Tirana.<\/p>\n

Asked whether any EU leaders had signaled talks might begin soon, Rama replied: \u201cWhat signals can they give? It\u2019s not about them. Again, it\u2019s about Bulgaria. They all agree, they all support, they all think that this should happen, and this should have already happened. But their margin of maneuver is limited from Bulgaria.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rama, 57, a former basketball player and a painter \u2014 who has covered the walls of his office with his own colorful artwork \u2014 said he did not expect Bulgarian leaders to change their position, as they had made the dispute into such a big issue that it was very hard to back down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a spiral. They have entered a spiral. And from that spiral, it\u2019s very, very difficult to get out,\u201d declared Rama, who will attend a\u00a0meeting<\/a>\u00a0of Western Balkan and EU leaders in Brussels ahead of the summit.<\/p>\n

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Bulgarian officials have\u00a0defended<\/a>\u00a0their position, insisting they are simply asking North Macedonia to abide by previous commitments and seeking to protect the rights of Bulgarians in the country.<\/p>\n

North Macedonia, for its part, has declared it is making good-faith efforts to engage with Sofia and stressed that a bilateral dispute should not hold up the start of talks between the EU and a would-be member.<\/p>\n

Rama confirmed that if there is no progress this month, he will ask for Albania\u2019s membership bid to be treated separately from North Macedonia\u2019s \u2014 a step the EU has so far been reluctant to take, with officials arguing it would be better for regional stability if the two neighbors could advance together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf nothing will happen in June, we\u2019ll ask to be separated from this couple that is lost in translation,\u201d Rama said. \u201cI\u2019m confident that this is what we should do, then if [EU leaders] will agree or not, we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Backing for Macron<\/h3>\n

The Albanian leader also said he supports French President\u00a0Emmanuel Macron\u2019s idea<\/a>\u00a0of a European Political Community \u2014 an organization that would be open to both members and non-members of the EU.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s right. This should have been done long ago \u2026 because this is visionary,\u201d Rama said, while declining to get into details about the form the community should take.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis can be discussed, but in principle, to have one political community which organizes itself in different ways \u2026 is very important, and it\u2019s beyond the European Union that we have today \u2026 which is clearly not able to confront the challenges of the times that are lying ahead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Macron framed his plan partly as a response to the war in Ukraine, suggesting the proposed community would be a quicker way for Kyiv to integrate into European political structures than the lengthy EU accession process.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s war has also highlighted divisions in the Western Balkans. Some countries \u2014 such as Albania \u2014 have followed the EU in imposing sanctions on Russia while others \u2014 such as Serbia \u2014 have not.<\/p>\n

Although Serbia and Albania have frequently been at odds over the decades, Rama pleaded for understanding for Belgrade\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to understand that Serbia is in a very different position than many others, because of its history, because of its special ties with Russia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said he believed Serbia should impose sanctions over time but warned against pushing Belgrade, which is heavily dependent on Moscow for energy supplies, to do too much too soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsking them to go there, right now, and all over the range, is practically impossible \u2026 It\u2019s suicidal for their economy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Putting too much Western pressure on Serbia could be detrimental to the stability of the Western Balkan region, Rama warned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to sometimes bear with others and understand what\u2019s going on, otherwise we cannot keep this community together for higher and better purposes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Serbia is on the right track. Of course, not with the speed we might like, we might want. But believe me, the other scenarios are really very bad for everyone and especially for this region,\u201d Rama said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read the original article on the POLITICO website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In POLITICO interview, Edi Rama also voices support for Macron\u2019s political community \u2014 and understanding for Serbia. The Albanian leader also said he supports French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s idea of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[153],"class_list":["post-15439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-room","tag-153"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}