On 23-25 September 2024, a delegation from prominent EU think tanks carried out a fact-finding mission to North Macedonia, aimed at assessing the country’s EU accession process. North Macedonia, which recently held general elections and formed a new government, is facing a number of challenges.
The trip was organized by and included representatives from several EU think tanks – DGAP in Berlin, Carnegie Europe, the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris, the Clingendael Institute in The Hague, the Open Society Institute – Sofia (OSIS) as well as the Open Society Foundations Western Balkans. It was conducted in cooperation with the Institute for Democracy ‘Societas Civilis’ in Skopje, which hosted the mission. The OSIS’ Think Tanks for the Future of EU Enlargement Program (https://thenextmile.eu) provided partial support for the fact-finding mission.
The delegation met with high-level decision-makers and politicians from the ruling coalition, opposition leaders, independent experts, civil society leaders, representatives of the EU Delegation, ambassadors of EU member states, and the US Embassy.
They included Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, Vice President of the Parliament and Head of the EU Committee Antonio Milososki, Minister of Energy, Mining and Mineral Resources Sanja Bozinovska, former President Stevo Pendarovski, former Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Bujar Osmani, Head of the EU Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Andrej Lepavcov, former Deputy Prime Minister for EU Affairs Bojan Bojan Marichikj, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikola Dimitrov, Ana Krstinovska, President of Estima, Simonida Kacarska, Director of the European Policy Institute, Zoran Jovanovski, Vice President of the Economic Chamber of North Macedonia, Malinka Ristevska Jordanova – a prominent expert in European integration, the ambassador of the European Union to the Republic of North Macedonia, the ambassadors of Germany, the Netherlands, and France, as well as political officers from the U.S. Embassy in Skopje.
