“No one will subscribe to the EU membership of a candidate country that deviates from its commitments and disturbs its neighbors who are already members of the European family”, pointed out the vice-president of the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas, regarding the behavior of the new leadership of the North Macedonia.

“The first writing samples of the new leadership of North Macedonia raise serious issues of political and legal order”, he said, in his intervention during the presentation at the Thessaloniki International Book Fair of journalist Stavros Tsima’s book, “The hidden aspects of the Macedonian”. published by Epikentro Publications.

Mr. Schinas underlined the following:

“In the last 20 years after the Thessaloniki Summit, the EU set a clear framework for the European restructuring of the Western Balkans which continues to be the main point of reference for the EU’s presence in the provision.

The accession of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 and Croatia in 2013 demonstrated that this road map paid off. The fact that now all the countries in the region have official pre-accession status proves that the European orientation of the Balkans is lawlessness and an unwavering commitment.

The increasingly burdensome geopolitical horizon, Russia’s withdrawal from multilateral governance, Turkey’s vacillations between the Islamic arc and its Western commitments, and the temptation of populism and nationalism by some leaders in the region, make Europe more and more necessary. since when.

The EU remains – by far – the biggest investor in the Balkans. The people look forward to a European future. Their national institutional and legislative arrangements are firmly harmonized with the Community embroidery. The large communities of the Balkan Diaspora in EU countries are bridging the various and accelerating convergences.

Undoubtedly, there are still significant obstacles to this process. Important obstacles, often psychological and populist, but not insurmountable.

The ongoing involvement in Kosovo, the nationalist crowns of the new leadership in Skopje and the ethnocentric logic of Tirana in matters of Rule of Law burden the climate of the European alignment of the Balkans with the EU.

Especially the first writing samples of the new leadership of North Macedonia raise serious issues of political and legal order. There is still time for him to leave the dead-end road of nationalistic aggravation and revisionism. I hope the unanimous reactions of the European and Atlantic family to their first statements and actions will be food for thought for the decision-makers in Skopje.

No one in the EU is willing to tolerate these logics being introduced into the EU. No one will subscribe to the EU membership of a candidate country that deviates from its commitments and disturbs its neighbors who are already members of the European family. No nationalist or populist retreat will be tolerated in a region that has taken decades to overcome the deep rifts opened by war and ethnic conflict.

The times are critical to allow concessions to the European system of value-based governance and the EU’s institutional architecture.

Today more than ever in the past, the Europeanization of the Balkans is urgent, not the Balkanization of Europe.”