
Tear gas bodes ill for Macedonia name deal
Police fired tear gas against protesters in Greece and Macedonia over the weekend, as diplomats signed a name deal to unlock EU enlargement.
Friday
22nd Jun 2018

Police fired tear gas against protesters in Greece and Macedonia over the weekend, as diplomats signed a name deal to unlock EU enlargement.

Ahead of an EU summit in Sofia in May, two different viewpoints look at Kosovo's future accession to the EU - one from Pristina and one from Brussels.

As EU leaders Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker meet president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Bulgaria, their reluctance to use their diminishing leverage with Ankara means his dismantling of Turkey's democracy only speeds up.
In an annual progress report, European Commission says "independence of justice, law enforcement as well as national anti-corruption authorities need substantial improvement".
The EU institutions - notably the European parliament - kick up a big fuss about jailed journalists in Turkey. But not all journalists are 'equal' in Brussels' eyes.
Faced with poorer infrastructure, dual food standards and what can seem like hectoring from western Europe it is not surprising some central and eastern European member states are rebelling.

Last weekend some 175,000 people in the Basque country demanded a 'right to decide'. For some, it means more autonomy from Spain, others independence. "We want to open a second front within the Spanish state," says one Basque politician.

Macedonian PM Zoran Zaev has said a "breakthrough" on the name dispute is imminent, as he prepares to speak to his Greek counterpart on Friday.

EU ambassador to Turkey said member states may consider reopening accession talks with Ankara if Erdogan put an end to the post-coup state of emergency.

At the first summit in 15 years with Western Balkan leaders, EU chiefs made it clear that enlargement is not at hand - but offered economic incentives to keep the region close to the bloc.
The EU is prioritising motorways and gas pipelines across the potential accession Western Balkan countries, plus hydropower energy projects which threaten one of the world's freshwater biodiversity hotspots.
Unlocking Macedonia talks could be this year's big breakthrough in EU enlargement, but the devil's in the detail of Macedonia's constitution, as Macedonian prime minister Zoran Zaev and Greek PM Alexis Tsipras meet in Sofia.
Turkey has belittled the EU in a week of macho posturing, but strategic relations go deeper than the rhetoric.
Albania and Macedonia should start accession talks, but human rights abuses mean Turkey should stay on hold, EU says in draft report seen by EUobserver.
A country that has only 20 percent of the population of Greece and virtually no military forces cannot reasonably be considered a security concern.
While Bulgaria aims to have all 28 EU countries in Sofia in May to give a boost to EU accession of the Western Balkans, some EU countries want to make sure their reservations about Kosovo are noted.
Bulgaria's prime minister Boyko Borissov described a meeting at the Black Sea resort of Varna between the presidents of Turkey, the EU council, and the European commission as "charged with great tension." Disputes remain far from resolved.
Bosnia-Herzegovina needs a memorial to the 100,000 dead in the 1992 war, if it is to move on.
The EU got "limited" effect for the €9bn it spent trying to modernise Turkey in recent years, auditors have said. Turkey has been "backsliding" on reforms since 2013 due to "lack of political will", the European Court of Auditors found.

The EU-Ukraine association deal - probably the most explosive EU deal with a third country in history - was long on open markets and trade barriers, but quiet on welfare states, poverty and inequality: all of which feed populism.

After the European Commission presented its Western Balkans strategy last week, with a view of possibly integrating the region by 2025, some EU ministers were less enthusiastic after their first discussion of the new policy.
EU powers and the US have welcomed Kosovo's decision to end its attempt to overturn a war crimes tribunal.
The Strasbourg-based human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, is heading to Ankara next week. The trip follows new plans by Ankara to meet EU demands for reforms in areas like anti-terror legislation.

The European Commission is rarely praised for bold action these days - but the EU Strategy for the Western Balkans deserves applause.

EU commission changed key policy document after Spanish objections, despite Kosovo's warning of "tensions".
Commission head told Croatia's Andrei Plenkovic that Slovenia border dispute could wreck EU aspirations of Balkan neighbours.
EU commission head Juncker planning a peregrination of Western Balkans capitals amid EU efforts to play geopolitics with Russia and China.

Faruk Kaymakci, Turkey's ambassador to the EU, says Ankara is ready to reform its anti-terror laws and meet all outstanding benchmarks so that Turks can travel freely to EU member states without visas.

The European Commission's new West Balkans strategy means well - but it will need serious commitment to respecting the rule of law, not just paying attention when violence flares.
Not every Greek is obsessed with the 'threat' of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia changing its name to something more pronounceable. In fact, the rest of the world thinks we are insane.
Under president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's diplomats have been turned into agents hunting supposed followers of his opponent Fethullah Gulen, and are now suspected of harassing journalists even in Belgium.

It is crucial that the EU strategy and the Sofia summit provide the same accession perspective to all six Western Balkan countries, Kosovo president's top official says.

Kosovo "does not fit" an EU strategy for speeding up Western Balkans enlargement, Madrid said in the wake of the Catalonia crisis.