EP adopts country report, Waitz says accession unfairly blocked for too long due to bilateral disputes
Strasbourg, 9 July 2025 (MIA) -- The European Parliament adopted Wednesday EP rapporteur Thomas Waitz's progress report on the 2023 and 2024 Commission reports on North Macedonia, after holding a debate on the report Tuesday evening.
Earlier Wednesday, 461 MEPs voted in favor of the report, 121 voted against it and 107 abstained from voting.
In an official statement released shortly after the vote, Austrian Greens/EFA MEP Waitz said the EP had not adopted a progress report on the country in the last three years.
"Today we adopted the first North Macedonia country report since 2022," Waitz said in the statement.
"North Macedonia has been a frontrunner in the region, showing real commitment to EU values, including a historic name change and bold reforms. But its accession has been unfairly blocked for too long due to bilateral disputes, fuelling public frustration and disillusionment with the EU," the EP rapporteur said.
He said the report underlined that enlargement should be a merit-based process based on the Copenhagen criteria and called on North Macedonia to enact the necessary reforms.
"I call on all political parties in North Macedonia to engage in constructive dialogue to reach the required consensus, which would strengthen the country’s multi-ethnic character and accelerate EU progress," he said.
He said that his efforts as rapporteur were aimed at "a well-balanced and impartial report on the democratic progress of this country."
"Unfortunately," he said, "some Bulgarian MEPs hijacked the report for domestic purposes.”
Ahead of the vote on the report, the EP adopted amendments to it, including the one submitted by MEPs Andrzej Halicki on behalf of the PPE Group, Kathleen Van Brempt on behalf of the S&D Group and Dan Barna on behalf of the Renew Group deleting the mention of the Macedonian language and identity from the report.
Prviously, Bulgarian MEPs had raised objections to the mention of Macedonian language and identity that was mentioned in the draft report, asking that the word contemporary precede the phrase. mr/
