The risks of the France’s obstacle to North Macedonia and Albania’s EU membership
5642 Mins Read
North Macedonia and Albania face a risk of surging nationalism and unravelling economic reforms after the EU closed the door for years on their hopes of joining the bloc, the leaders of both countries have warned. Zoran Zaev, prime minister of North Macedonia, said in an interview that he feared a return to his ethnically divided country’s “bad past”, including a narrowly averted civil war in 2001.
Edi Rama, prime minister of Albania, said in a separate interview that his country risked becoming “collateral damage” from the EU’s divisions over enlargement. The warnings from both Balkan leaders underline analysts’ fears that the EU’s failure to proceed with both countries’ accession process will destabilise a geopolitically delicate region where the influence of other countries including Russia and China is growing.
On October 18, France stood alone in opposing the accession of North Macedonia and Albania to the European Union. High-ranking officials and leaders of the EU such as Donald Tusk, Jean-Claude Junker and Commissioner Johannes Hahn expressed dismay at the French decision. Various pundits and observers described French President Emmanuel Macron’s veto as a major “mistake”.
Justifying his historic “no” to opening accession negotiation with the two countries, Macon said he could not assure his people that “everything’s going so well that we’re going to open negotiations” if there are “thousands and thousands and thousands” of Albanians applying for asylum in France.
This fear of immigration from within Europe betrays a gaze that does not see all Europeans as equal – ie some Europeans are apparently more European than others. No wonder then that different instruments and initiatives that have been part of the European integration process are called “Europeanisation”.
Belonging to a single continent, sharing similar cultural heritage and different yet intersecting histories apparently is not what “Europeanness” is. Rather, the measure for being truly European appears to be being from a rich, capitalist neoliberal state, especially a former colonial power which still enjoys some post-colonial perks. All former communist countries on the continent are expected to emulate this model through the process of so-called integration, adopting “measures”, “instruments”, “reforms” dictated by Western technocrats.
