The evolution of EU accession requirements for North Macedonia

Abstract

Since Republic of North Macedonia has been a candidate country for European Union membership for almost two decades, the goal of this article is to shed a light on the conditions and requirements that were set before Macedonia and their evolution for this time period. For that purpose the article, annual reports of the European Commission on Macedonia’s progress were reviewed. Further on, analysis of the development of Macedonia’s macroeconomic indicators was carried out which was followed by a comparative analysis of the state of the economic development of the Central and Eastern European countries - member states of the European Union, at the moment of their accession. It was established that the EU enlargement process have undergone significant changes since its foundation. Over time, the changed political environment within the EU has led to a significant strengthening and tightening of the rules and criteria. The inefficiency of the latest accessions provoked the EU once again to change the accession negotiation process and introduce new accession process that is significantly more political than economic. In Macedonia’s case, it was political and not economic requirements that led to the country becoming stuck in its EU accession process. The economic results achieved by Macedonia during the researched period, even though lower than the average for the union, were still higher that the results shown by some Central and Eastern European counties at the time when they became members of the EU. Therefore, is no doubt, that Macedonia’s path to the EU was conditioned by political obstacles, the same situation continues today. But the major question that still stand unanswered is weather this kind increased politicization of the process is contradictory to the merit-based system the EU prides itself on.