Croatia announced on Friday that it intended during its presidency of the Council of the European Union to facilitate the launch of negotiations on accepting North Macedonia and Albania as member states
BELGRADE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th January, 2020) Croatia announced on Friday that it intended during its presidency of the Council of the European Union to facilitate the launch of negotiations on accepting North Macedonia and Albania as member states.
Earlier in the day, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had a closed-door meeting with Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. The Croatian government also had a joint session with the European Commission delegation, during which the former promised to tackle demographic issues, as well as matters relating to Brexit and financial planning during its six-month tenure at the helm of the council.
"Regarding the expansion [of the EU], 20 years after the [2000] EU summit in Zagreb that opened the doors to the EU for Croatia, we would like to give a new impetus and, if possible, allow and unblock the situation regarding opening membership talks with North Macedonia and Albania," the Croatian government said on Twitter.
North Macedonia and Albania were supposed to begin the entry talks with the EU last year but were blocked by France.
In November, Paris began circulating a memo proposing that the approach to accepting new members states be changed to introduce, among other things, more complicated acceptance procedures.
