On 17.12. 15 years ago, Macedonia received EU candidate status. Fifteen years later, the country welcomes this date with a confirmed blockade on its start of negotiations with the EU Fifteen years later, on the eve of December 17, 2020, it was confirmed that the country remains at the gates of Brussels, without the opportunity to start negotiations with the EU. Coincidence, irony of history, or more? According to the Macedonian government, this is a huge geostrategic mistake of the EU.
"Bulgaria 's veto was confirmed, which does not allow the start of our country' s negotiations in the EU, although according to all reports from the European institutions, we met all the criteria to accept the negotiating framework and hold the first intergovernmental conference to start negotiations. . We deliver, and the EU has not kept its promises, and at the moment we are not getting the right answer. Bulgaria and the EU repeat the mistake regarding Northern Macedonia. "The historic mistake in 2019 is now a huge geostrategic mistake of the EU," the government said last night.
There are reasons for disappointment, given that 15 years ago Macedonia was called a "Balkan leader" on the integration path.
Where we were, where we are
As an illustration, when Macedonia received candidate status in 2005, Montenegro was still not an independent state. It became independent in 2007, and in 2012 officially began negotiations with the EU. Serbia received candidate status in March 2012 and began negotiations with the EU the following year. The first of the former Yugoslavia to join the EU was Slovenia on 1 May 2004. The second of the countries of the former Yugoslavia is Croatia, which became a member of the EU on July 1, 2013.
Macedonia's European story began after the country's independence in 1991, when both the ruling and opposition parties reached a consensus that Macedonia's future is in the EU.

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