Skopje, 23 January 2025 (MIA) – The head of the Council of Albanian Ambassadors, Genci Mucaj, is an optimist that North Macedonia will soon join Albania after the latter kicked of negotiations with the EU by opening the first cluster and that a solution will be found with Bulgaria to unblock Skopje’s EU integration path. 

“We’re not happy that you are behind, we would like to be together on the EU integration path. We are both Europeans and we should have joined the EU by now. I don’t see why you wouldn’t join us soon regardless of the delay. I’m sure that a solution with the Bulgarian side will be found. There is no reason why the European integration of the countries in the region would be blocked,” said Ambassador Mucaj of the Council of Albanian Ambassadors, the co-organizer of today’s regional workshop “Dialogue with the Civil Society for Changes in the Western Balkans” alongside the Council of Ambassadors of the Republic of North Macedonia. 

He called EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos’s statement that two or three countries could become members by 2030 “an assumption.”

“I know the European Commission has great will for the Western Balkan countries to join the EU and there’s no way to stop it. Just continue and be patient. I don’t think we will wait more than we have already waited. We are definitely getting there, no question about it,” said Mucaj. 

EU commissioner Kos, speaking at a discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said European Union enlargement is a process based on merits, not on a timeframe.

“What I hear sometimes is that Western Balkan countries have been waiting for so long. It’s not about how long they’ve been waiting. It is a matter of their political will and how capable they are to fulfil it,” said Kos.

According to her, the European Union has been closely following what has been happening in candidate countries and they are in general obliged to meet certain conditions following the ‘take it or leave it’ principle.

“I’m sorry that I have to say this so openly,” said Kos.

The commissioner has said on several occasions, reiterating the 2022 conclusion of the Council of the EU, that North Macedonia has to pass the constitutional changes in order to resume its EU integration process. 

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