site.btaUS Assistant Secretary of State Advises North Macedonia against Looking for Different Path to EU

United States Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O'Brien believes that now is the time for Europe to renew its commitment to the integration of those territories which are somehow almost in Europe but not quite.

Speaking through an interpreter for North Macedonia's MIA news agency, O'Brien said the war in Ukraine shows that outstanding problems can breed conflict and create a "gray zone" which can be exploited by opportunists and politicians promising easy answers. The EU decision to open accession negotiations with Ukraine shows the EU's unity on enlargement, he argued. The unity had been absent for some time, but now there is a commitment and an awareness that the time has come, he added.

The US diplomat believes that the same spirit will prevail vis-a-vis the obstacles to other EU candidate countries, including North Macedonia. He recalled that in the process of joining NATO Skopje already took bold steps and changed the country's name and the Constitution, and now it is faced with another requirement, but European policies and geopolitics are focused on having all these countries into the EU.

The Assistant Secretary of State was obviously referring to the expectation that Bulgarians will be named in the Constitution of North Macedonia. This is part of a broader effort to settle the dispute between Skopje and Sofia, which is related mainly to the rights of Macedonian Bulgarians, hate speech, and what Sofia sees as misrepresentation of facts of common history. The need for North Macedonia to amend its Constitution has been recognized by Skopje, Brussels and Sofia as a condition for starting EU accession talks with North Macedonia.

O'Brien went on to say in his interview with MIA that the upcoming elections in North Macedonia are important. If the people keep going down the path they have been following, the process will certainly move forward in the coming years, he stressed. If years are spent looking for a different path, North Macedonia's advancement toward the EU will be delayed.

Discussing the stance of the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party against amending the Constitution under Bulgarian pressure, O'Brien said there is a charted path, which is controversial, and there is an uncharted path. But does the uncharted path exist at all, or is it just a convenient way to avoid saying that there is only one path, he wondered.