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MEPs on Wednesday (10 February) urged member states to open accession talks with Macedonia, a call backed by the new enlargement commissioner, Stefan Fuele. In three separate reports, the European Parliament gave the thumbs up to progress made by Zagreb and Skopje towards EU accession, while Ankara's performance was deemed more modest.

The parliament urged member states to take a decision "at the summit in March 2010" and "expects negotiations to begin in the near future." Mr Fuele said the decision was not only in the interest of the Balkan country, but also of "strategic EU interest," since it would "enhance the EU perspective for the wider region" – a message he would convey to member states and Skopje. Slovenian Socialist MEP Zoran Thaler, the parliament's rapporteur for Macedonia, warned of the negative regional consequences of this stalemate, comparing the Western Balkans to a bicycle: fine as long as it's moving, "but if it stays still, everything falls over

A solution to Macedonia's name dispute with Greece should be found in the coming four months, so as to start EU accession negotiations under the Spanish EU presidency, enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuele said during his visit to Skopje on Friday (19 February). "There is a unique opportunity to find a solution and it should be seized. I am fully committed to supporting the talks, which along with the required political will, should lead to a solution," Mr Fuele told local media after meeting Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.

It is still unknown how Greece's current financial and economic troubles will have an impact on the Macedonian name dispute. Athens is currently under tremendous pressure from big eurozone countries such as Germany and France to cut back spending and provide accurate data on its deficit, while facing unprecedented scrutiny by the European Commission. Some diplomats suggest that this offers a window of opportunity which should be seized, while others say that because of the painful economic measures, Athens will be even less inclined to compromise on the name issue, a matter of national pride.

Sweden remains committed to EU enlargement, Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said, even while reiterating the key role Sweden plays, saying membership in the bloc “is the best way to safeguard our values and national interests in an increasingly complex world.” He noted that “by allowing the doors of the EU to remain open, we make a considerable contribution to peace and democracy on our continent,” citing the Western Balkans, where there has been considering disagreement over whether countries riddled with corruption, economic woes and failure to catch accused war criminals should become part of the EU.

Kosovo predicts that it will be an EU member before 2020. But two years after its declaration of independence, its EU integration process is facing problems. Asked by Austrian daily Der Standard in an interview on Tuesday (16 February), whether Kosovo will get into the EU by the end of this decade, its foreign minister, Skender Hyseni, said: "I am optimistic that we will be in before that."

The EU is deeply engaged in Kosovo. Its rule-of-law mission, Eulex, is the bloc's largest in the world, with 2,600 people on the ground. Twenty EU countries take part in the International Steering Group, which helps oversee the Kosovo government. It has pumped in over €5 billion of aid since 1999. Despite the non-recognition issue, EU states have opened tentative talks on visa-free travel. A so-called "tracking" group meets around three times a year to pave the way for a pre-accession treaty, the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA). One of the most frequently cited problems on Kosovo's path to normality is the well-funded separatist ethnic Serb movement in the north of Kosovo. But despite the EU's investment in Pristina, tensions between Eulex and ethnic Albanians are also on the rise.

Croatia on Monday (21 December) closed two more negotiation chapters in its bid to join the EU, but Slovenia is blocking the opening of three other areas.

Zagreb finalised negotiations in the areas of free movement of services and social policy. But in the meantime, Slovenia has blocked the opening of further negotiations on fisheries, environment and foreign and security policy.

The Netherlands has faith in Serbia’s European future, but it is still essential to continue the cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, Verhagen said after his meeting with Jeremić. He congratulated his Serbian counterpart on “efforts Serbia was making in cooperation with the tribunal”. The Serbian foreign minister said that Belgrade would remain dedicated to the cooperation with the Hague Tribunal until it was completed. “I assured Verhagen that Brammertz’s next report could only be better than the last one,” Jeremić said.

Bulgaria is threatening to block Turkey's application to join the European Union unless it pays out billions of euros in compensation for displaced people, in a case dating back to the days of the Ottoman Empire. A Bulgarian cabinet minister without portfolio who runs the country's Agency for Bulgarians Abroad, Bojidar Dimitrov, pressed the claim in remarks to the Bulgarian newspaper, 24 Hours, on Sunday (3 January).

"Turkey is surely able to pay this sum, after all, it's the 16th largest economic power in the world," he said, putting a total of $20 billion (€14 billion) on the settlement. "One of the three conditions of Turkey's full membership of the EU is solving the problem of the real estate of Thracian refugees." The Ottoman Empire in 1913 expelled hundreds of thousands of ethnic Bulgarians from lands lying on the western side of the Bosphorus. It became the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and recognised the rights of the displaced people in a 1925 treaty, but the agreement was never implemented, Bulgaria says. An official in the Bulgarian government press office, Veselin Ninov, told EUobserver on Monday that Mr Dimitrov's statement reflects government policy and that the dispute is being handled by a Bulgarian-Turkish intergovernmental working group.

Speaking to journalists in Brussels yesterday, Moratinos appeared to take the side of his Serbian colleague Vuk Jeremic, who underlined divisions between EU member countries over Kosovo. Spain is among those EU countries not to have recognised the Balkan state (see 'Background'). 

Links European Union European Union Special Representative in Kosovo: EULEX, Kosovo: International Organisations UNMIK: International Civil Office, Kosovo:

BRDO PRI KRANJU, Slovenia (Reuters) - Seven Balkan states urged the European Union at a summit on Saturday to stay committed to enlargement, but Serbia's refusal to attend alongside an independent Kosovo exposed deep regional divisions.

Less than one year after the watershed ruling from Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court that empowered Germany’s parliament to trump EU law, Germany is using the ruling to force the EU to conform to its will. The issue Germany has chosen to test this extraordinary power not given to any other EU member nation is Iceland’s bid to join the EU. The EU’s decision to consider Iceland as an official candidate was expected to be made in a late March summit, following a favorable recommendation from the EU commission. It was delayed, however, to give the German parliament time to examine the commission’s opinion. For Iceland to be considered as an official candidate for EU membership, several German parliamentary committees must consent to the move.

It is interesting that the first time Germany has forced the EU to consult the Bundestag in an expansion of EU power is in the matter of enlargement—not even if a nation will become an actual member, but in such a trivial matter as whether it will be considered an official candidate. Just look at Turkey’s bid for membership to see how meaningful being an official candidate is. This area of EU power typically doesn’t have a direct impact on any of the current EU members, and so Germany chose to try out its new power in an uncontroversial way. This is apparent by the lack of headlines devoted to Germany’s first use of its national “supremacy clause.” The other heavyweights of the EU, France and Britain, are not calling foul, and none of the other member nations seem concerned that the EU’s enlargement policy was just hijacked by Germany.

A senior Greek official has indicated that Athens is ready to accept the name 'Northern Macedonia' for its northern neighbour, in a development that could bring an end to the 19-year-old title dispute that has hampered Skopje's EU membership ambitions.

The Greek administration also insists that the issue must be resolved before Skopje can enter into EU accession discussions, a process that requires unanimous support from the bloc's full complement of members.

Croatia resumed accession talks with the European Union on Friday after an almost one-year freeze caused by a border row with Slovenia, a breakthrough which the EU said was a "win-win-win" situation.But the Union said after talks with Turkey, which also hopes to join the EU, that Ankara still had plenty of urgent work to do on reforms and made clear it would face criticism in an EU report this month on its progress towards membership.The EU accession drive is an anchor for reform in candidate countries, and financial markets in Turkey are particularly sensitive to any signs its efforts may be flagging.The resumption of talks with Croatia, after EU member Slovenia lifted a veto it imposed last December over the border row, has raised its hopes of becoming the 28th EU member state.

Serbia's bid to become official candidate for accession to the European Union is likely to be delayed until autumn due to the Balkan country's intransigent position on Kosovo's status, WAZ.EUobserver has learned from well-informed diplomatic sources in Brussels. Member states have indicated they may again postpone processing Serbia's membership application, which Belgrade hopes to see happening in June. The reason is Serbia's intention to raise the question of Kosovo's status at the United Nations. Belgrade is waiting for the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the former Serbian province's declaration of independence, and has threatened to take it to the UN General Assembly.

Romania is threatening to create problems for Croatia's EU accession bid in a diplomatic counter-attack against delays to its own entry into the EU's border-free Schengen zone. Romanian foreign minister Teodor Baconschi in an interview with the daily newspaper Adevarul on Monday (3 January) attacked Germany and France for linking Romania's Schengen bid to progress on corruption and organised crime.

EUobserver understands that this option is not really feasible however, as the monitoring was a jointly agreed commitment of Bulgaria and Romania when they joined the bloc. "It's unwise to give it up if you want something else at the same time," one EU official told this website. For its part, Croatia has already been held hostage by its neighbour Slovenia, which in recent years delayed its EU accession progress over a maritime border dispute. Romania's sabre-rattling seems to be directed primarily at Germany - Croatia's main supporter in the EU - rather than the Balkan state itself. But it could, in theory, delay the process. Croatia is hoping to finish EU accession talks in the coming months. EU governments and the European Parliament then have to approve and ratify its accession treaty, with membership likely to happen in 2013 if everything goes smoothly.

Mr Petkov's allegations reflect a dire image painted by EU officials in talks with US diplomats in Sofia, as reported in a US cable dating back to 26 June 2009 and published by WikiLeaks. Under the headline "How to you make them reform when they don't want to?" the US diplomats spoke of EU commission officials' "growing and by now extreme frustration with Sofia's cosmetic fixes to get a 'good report' while failing to undertake real reforms." "The government's defensive arrogance - and lack of political will - is intensifying enlargement fatigue in Brussels," an EU source told the US diplomat. "According to reliable contacts, Brussels Eurocrats have dubbed enlargement fatigue the 'Bulgarian Break,' further tarnishing Bulgaria's bad image within the EU," the cable added.

Just over 50 years ago, Hungary fought back against a bloody invasion by the Soviet Army. Just over 20 years ago, it hastened the fall of the Berlin Wall, granting East German refugees free passage to West Germany.Now, Hungary marks another achievement in its transformation from a communist satellite to democratic republic as it assumes the presidency of the European Union on January 1, for the first time since joining the bloc in 2004. Speaking recently in Budapest following a meeting with EU officials, Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, said a key priority for his country's presidency would be enlargement, which he said had given countries like his own the motivation to get their domestic affairs in order."We would like to return the impetus for EU enlargement," Orban said. "Enlargement will help solve the internal affairs [of new members], because those who enlarge, grow, and extend themselves believe in their future prospects. And what the European Union really needs today is to believe strongly in its own prospects."

But many in the EU are worried the "special flavor" that Hungary brings to the EU Presidency will come with a bitter aftertaste. Van Rompuy's words of support came as the Hungarian parliament was passing new media legislation that critics say will return the country to communist-era levels of state control.

Three EU states will in a UN court case in December argue that Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence was illegal. But EU officials say the judges' decision will not impact Kosovo's "irreversible" new status. Spain, Romania and Cyprus will join Serbia and Russia in giving anti-Kosovo depositions during hearings from 1 to 11 December at the UN's top legal body, the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Spain, Romania and Cyprus together with Slovakia and Greece declined to recognise Kosovo's independence last year. But the group of three's involvement in The Hague procedure marks a shift from passive to active resistance against Kosovo statehood. With Germany, France, the UK, the Netherlands and the US set to make pro-Kosovo statements at the UN hearings, the verdict, which is expected in early 2010, could go either way.

Ankara believes that stalled negotiations on Turkey's EU accession can be unblocked swiftly if the Cyprus talks make headway, the minister of European affairs and Turkey's chief EU negotiator, Egemen Bagiş, told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

Five chapters of Turkey's EU accession negotiations are currently being blocked by France, while three are being held by Austria and Germany.  The chief negotiator said his country had been promised full membership and was therefore requesting "nothing less, nothing more".  "I checked the 100,000-page acquis," Bagiş said, referring to the EU's lengthy body of approved legislation. "There's nothing besides membership. There is no alternative to membership. It doesn't exist."  "What President Sarkozy used to say […] does not exist," stressed Bagiş, adding that "his colleagues promised me not to use those insulting, those horrible phrases again".  Although he insisted that the Cyprus problem was not directly related to Turkey's accession negotiations, he admitted that a positive development in the island's reunification talks could lead to an unblocking of Turkey's negotiating chapters. 

Polish President Lech Kaczynski at noon on Saturday (10 October) signed the Lisbon Treaty at a ceremony in Warsaw. But Czech head of state Vaclav Klaus put a dampener on the occasion with attempts to revive World War Two-era tensions from his castle in Prague.

Mr Kaczynski warmly endorsed Poland's EU membership. But he said integration should not go too far and indicated that his accord is based on trust that the EU will take in more former Communist states in the future. "Without any complexes, without fears we have opted for further integration with the European Union, because we feel good, we feel confident inside this fellowship," he said. "The union is a collection of sovereign states and will remain so. But co-operation will become ever more close." "The union as an exceptionally successful experiment cannot be closed to others who want to join it. Not just Balkan countries, but also Ukraine, Georgia, in the future, others. The union can't say No to them," he added, in his final words before putting pen to paper