Macedonia’s EU Accession – Negotiation or Stagnation

Abstract

This article centres on the state of the Macedonian EU accession process and analyses two crucial reform segments necessary in the pursuit of a date for opening accession negotiations. Firstly, the paper focuses on the political criteria, the problem of political dialogue and the factors that influence the problem. Here, the author argues that Macedonia was facing its first significant breach of EU conditionality which was not per se dependant on the institutional system, but rather on political elite behaviour. He further concludes that the problem of political elites not being able to provide political consensus would be short lived and could not continue on a mid term bases due to external and internal constraints. Secondly, the paper focuses on the public administration reform. Here, the author advocates that a successful negotiation process for Macedonia would be depending on the ability to apply an institutional approach and redefinition of decision making within the intra-institutional hierarchy.