The Netherlands Has Blocked Negotiations with Albania For the EU

The Dutch parliament opposed the start of negotiations with Albania last night but rejected the same resolution that concerns Northern Macedonia.

Dutch Parliament voted four resolutions on EU enlargement yesterday but only Albania has won a majority of votes, including the ruling, with 105 votes out of 150 MPs in parliament.

The resolution calls for not to enter into negotiations with Tirana in 2019, mainly due to insufficient progress in the fight against organized crime and corruption. The Dutch Government shares this view. According to Foreign Minister Stef Blok, the opening of the accession talks with Albania is a hasty decision.

The resolution for northern Macedonia, through which several Dutch MPs wanted to block talks with Skopje, was rejected by the majority in the Dutch parliament.

This is the first possible step towards separating northern Macedonia and Albania into the EU Council if the Netherlands as an EU Member State calls on the Council to take this approach when deciding on the Albania-Macedonia package on 18 June in Luxembourg or the next meeting the end of July in Brussels.

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