Is Macedonia Ready to Start Negotiations for EU Membership Regarding Chapter 27?
Is Macedonia Ready to Start Negotiations for EU Membership Regarding Chapter 27?

Author(s): Author Not Specified
Subject(s): Governance, Environmental and Energy policy, Environmental interactions, EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment, EU-Legislation
Published by: Аналитика Тинк-тенк Организација
Keywords: North Macedonia; EU membership; negotiation; accession process; Chapter 27; Chapter Environment; reform process; environmental protection; air quality sector; waste management sector; water sector;
Summary/Abstract: Macedonia as Western Balkan country is a challenging “bite” for the European Union (EU). This policy brief examines the integration efforts of Macedonia in the sphere of environment. Our aim is to bring different perspective in the public perceptions of the Chapter 27 as part of the EU integration processes. In times of global recession, environmental policy is often neglected as it is seen as a big spender of budget resources. Therefore, this paper aims to bring environment to the fore and focus public attention on Macedonia’s performance in the environmental sector, because of its noted substantial changes and progress. By doing this, we propose to propel a brighter view of both the state of the Macedonian environment and the progress with EU approximation. Through a comparative analysis, the brief also lays out the challenges and obstacles of the reform process in the environmental protection of the pre‐accession period of Slovakia and Croatia. As a new EU member state Slovakia was chosen in order to better identify the ways the country has dealt with the environmental barriers on the way to integration with the EU. Croatia is a current candidate state and as such shares many of the challenges Macedonia faces in the are of environment acquis approximation. Having advanced further on the road to EU membership, Croatia is a useful model for Macedonia.

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