On 10 May 2019 Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic claimed that none of the “beautiful dreams” that the EU holds out to the Western Balkans will come true. He predicted that the EU will not open any new negotiation chapters with Serbia and Montenegro, that the EU would not start negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia, that the EU would not grant visa liberalisation to Kosovo and that nothing positive would happen for Bosnia either. He added: “OK, we are stupid, but not that stupid, and everyone knows that I am right and that nothing will happen in June and in July”.

Vucic’s message is that the EU will not fulfil its promises and that instead each nation needs to fend for itself. In November last year Vucic announced that “we will continue to strengthen our military dramatically”.

When we will look back after the upcoming Council and European Council meetings, we might have to conclude that president Vucic was right and that North Macedonia’s prime minister Zoran Zaev, who invested all his political capital in the European future of his country, was wrong to do so. If North Macedonia will be denied the start of accession negotiations, Vucic will look realistic and strong. Zaev will look naïve and weak.

This cannot be in the interest of the EU. No doubt, many of the concerns of President Emmanuel Macron, German parliamentarians and others in the EU who do not want to take in unprepared new members, are warranted. None of the West Balkan countries currently meets the criteria for accession. None of them will join the EU without huge efforts to strengthen their democratic and judicial institutions. None of them will be prepared to join any time soon.

Few European leaders disagree with this assessment. But nearly all of them support the start of accession negotiations with North Macedonia. They have three strong arguments on their side.

First, the EU needs to keep its word to leaders who reach out to neighbours and minorities at home in a true spirit of reconciliation. In summer 2017 North Macedonia concluded a friendship treaty with Bulgaria and in summer 2018 it reached the Prespa Agreement with Greece. In January 2019 Albanian became the second official language of the country. According to the European Commission, North Macedonia has also made more reform progress in the last year than the two front-runners Montenegro and Serbia. If the EU now lets down the Western Balkan’s most pro-European government, why should anyone else in the Western Balkans take such political risks in the future? Anti-European forces would rejoice all over the region and portray the EU as an insincere cheat.