The European Commission is preparing a new enlargement plan and, according to reports on the draft, special roadmaps to speed up membership are being considered for four countries: Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova. Macedonia is not among them. The draft is not a final decision yet - but it already says a lot about where Brussels sees us.

Instead of a roadmap, something else is on the table: wider access to the European single market before membership, under strict conditions. The Commission would assess in which areas candidates have aligned their rules and whether they have institutions capable of enforcing them, with deeper cooperation in industry, research and technology. It is useful. But it is an economic back door, not an answer to the blocked negotiations.

From "together with Albania" to "after Albania"

In July 2022 Macedonia and Albania opened accession talks together. Four years on, Tirana is being considered for fast-track membership and Skopje is not in that draft. Some commentators are already writing that the country has "dropped" into a group with Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said he has no information that Macedonia will be left without a roadmap and disputed the media's reading. In his view the country delivered most of the reforms from the Reform Agenda and the Growth Plan over two reporting periods, so if accession is a merit-based process, this makes no sense to him. The numbers partly back him up: in May the Commission approved a new payment of 65.7 million euros from the Reform and Growth Facility, bringing the money released to Macedonia to 142.1 million euros.

At the same time, the prime minister is offering an explanation of an entirely different kind. The extremist wave in Germany and France, Iceland's failed referendum on restarting EU talks and the rise of Marine Le Pen, he says, mean things are not looking good for the Union and enlargement could stall. But if the Union isn't going to expand anyway, why are four countries getting a roadmap and Macedonia isn't?

Brussels isn't budging

The government wants talks with Sofia held in a wider European format, with EU mediation, plus guarantees that once the current conditions are met no new bilateral demands will follow. So far there is no official confirmation that any such format has been set up. And the Union's official position is unchanged: on his visit to Skopje on 2 June, European Council President António Costa repeated that the agreed constitutional amendments are the necessary next step.

Some experts see dialogue as the way out. "The idea of the European Union mediating is a good one, and for a long time we have been calling for the EU's role to shift from passive mediator to active facilitator," says Simonovski of the think tank Estima, but he warns that Bulgaria is an EU member and that carries a risk to the balance of the process.

The government's position is well known: no guarantees, no constitutional changes. Brussels's position is just as well known: no constitutional changes, no progress. While the two stand facing each other, four countries move forward and Macedonia waits at a counter where nobody ever calls its number. The roadmap, if it comes, will not be delivered by elections in France or a referendum in Iceland. It will come from a deal between Skopje and Brussels - or it won't come at all.