European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said North Macedonia “belongs at the European table” during a meeting in Skopje with Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, as she urged the country to take “one key step” to move forward in its EU accession talks.
Von der Leyen said accession negotiations with North Macedonia began in 2022 and that the EU’s “screening process” — an assessment of how closely a candidate country’s laws and standards match the EU’s — was completed in less than a year, according to her remarks released by the Commission on Friday.
She said North Macedonia now needs to take a further step before it can open the “fundamentals” cluster, an early group of negotiating chapters that covers issues such as the rule of law and democratic institutions.
Von der Leyen also stated that the EU “welcomes North Macedonia with its identity and its language”, adding that “the Macedonian culture and language can only make our Union richer.”
Funding, payments and new links to EU systems
Von der Leyen said North Macedonia had already received €140 million under the EU’s Growth Plan, with more payments due “in the coming weeks.”
She noted that North Macedonia had joined SEPA — the Single Euro Payments Area, which allows cross-border euro payments to be made under common rules — and that transaction fees had fallen by more than 90%.
The Commission president also said the EU and North Macedonia were “reducing roaming charges”, and announced that North Macedonia was joining Europe’s AI infrastructure through a new “AI Factory Antenna” called VEZILKA that will give companies, start-ups and researchers access to European computing power.
On security, von der Leyen said North Macedonia was the first country in the region to sign a Security and Defence Partnership with the EU, and that the European Peace Facility was being used to modernise the country’s armed forces.
She also said the EU would present “pre-enlargement policy reviews” next week, looking at EU institutions, policies and the budget ahead of any future expansion.
