With his progress report on the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) Macedonia’s efforts to meet EU criteria for accession candidacy due out this Tuesday, Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle is seeing his effectiveness questioned in certain circles in Brussels.

Commissioner Füle’s many trips to Skopje over the past year seem to have borne little, if any, fruit, apart from the perception, widely held in Brussels, that he is over-engaged with a FYROM leadership that is less than dedicated to the goal of adapting to European standards.

Highlighting what is at best a sluggish reform process, FYROM’s parliament only recently emerged from a deadlock that began 24 December last year, when opposition MPs – along with journalists – were forced by parliament security to leave a plenary session on the country’s 2013 budget.

The 1 March deal Commissioner Füle brokered between Prime Minister Gruevski’s government and the opposition – ostensibly ending the opposition’s boycott of parliament – has yet to be implemented. That effectively undermines the legitimacy of the opposition and of the democratic process in the country. In this light, the results of the recent local elections came as no surprise.

In what some saw as an eleventh-hour effort to bring Mr. Gruevski into line before the progress report comes out, Commissioner Füle was in Skopje again last Tuesday. As was the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina the next day, his meetings didn’t go very well, and no progress was achieved.

And then there is the view from Skopje: The word in VMRO circles is that, during their most recent meeting, Mr. Gruevski talked down to Mr. Füle, ruling out the possibility of any substantial implementation of the 1 March agreement. And the PM’s hard-line supporters boast that Gruevski has Füle well in hand.

The main concern in Brussels right now is that a progress report glossing over FYR Macedonia’s open flouting of the Copenhagen political criteria will undercut the EU’s influence and standing. This is particularly risky in a region where, unfortunately, Mr. Gruevski isn’t the only old-school Balkan leader who, given the chance, will treat democracy as nothing more than a catchphrase. Making the EU irrelevant in the Balkans was certainly not part of Mr. Füle’s job description.