Angela Merkel gives positive signals: Creating conditions for start of negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia

 Merkel and Plenkovic

 The German Chancellor said in Zagreb that she will hold talks with France to create the conditions for starting negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia. German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants consensus with France on reforming EU enlargement as soon as possible. She said this in Zagreb on Wednesday after meeting with her Croatian counterpart, Andrej Plenkovic.

“We support the Croatian government's plans to organize a joint conference with the Western Balkan countries in the full format of the European Union. And will be important for us to create the conditions for the start of negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia."

Given the French government's new proposal to reform the enlargement process, the German chancellor said:

"We now have to talk to France and we have to do this very intensively, to specify the elements that need to be improved, to be changed, in the enlargement process. We are ready to talk, even though today we have a large number of opportunities to be flexible," Merkel said further that the enlargement reform "should provide the Western Balkan countries with a real prospect of membership." She warned that the reform should not have the EU withdraw from its promises.

The German chancellor is in Zagreb to attend the European People's Congress, representing her party's chairman, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who is preparing the CDU congress, to be held on Friday in Leipzig.

Croatia will hold the rotating EU presidency in the first half of next year, and Germany in the second half. Both countries are strong supporters of Western Balkan countries' membership.