Skopje, 12 August 2024 (MIA) – The key to the EU accession are reforms, EU Ambassador David Geer told Sitel TV on Sunday, stressing he was sceptical that a better compromise could be found with Bulgaria. 

The new government, he said, has been very clear in its support for Ukraine, that’s a consistent approach with want went before and it is fully aligned with the joint foreign and security policy of the EU and the NATO membership. There may be other shifts, we will see over time, Geer added. 

“On the question of the Constitution – this is an issue which dominated quite a lot of my mandate. There were differences with Bulgaria on how to move forward on the accession process. Those were resolved through an agreement reached in July 2020 and it offers a way forward and the opening of the accession negotiations. The new government has made it clear that it is not happy with that agreement and believes that it could negotiate something further. I followed the negotiations myself very closely over from autumn 2020 until July 2022. It was a very difficult process. Compromises were made on both sides and in my personal view what was achieved at the end was a compromise, not perfect, but it was the best that could have been achieved at that time. I’m quite sceptical about the opportunity to go further than what was already agreed. It’s open to the government to try and it’s important that they engage with Bulgaria on this when the time is right. As I say, based on my experience, based on what was produced at the end, I’m sceptical about the opportunities there,” the EU diplomat stated. 

According to Geer, if the government wants to discuss with Bulgaria, they can do it at any point and after the elections there, there will be a political authority. 

The key to the EU accession process are reforms, he stressed. “You are not stuck.”

“There’s nothing stopping the government on launching reforms. In fact, the government has a very strong majority, a majority no other government recently has had and therefore, they can move on reforms, which they put into their program and many of those which are consistent with the accession process. I believe it is time to be very energetic with reforms. We’ve discussed this with the ministers,” Geer said. 

EU Ambassador Geer’s term in North Macedonia is concluding soon. 

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