Foreign Ministers Mull EU Enlargement

The foreign ministers of Greece, Romania and Bulgaria are meeting in Sofia to discuss European Union enlargement in the Western Balkans and border security.Dimitris Avramopoulos from Greece, Romania’s Titus Corlatean and Nikolay Mladenov from Bulgaria will focus on aligning their positions on the EU integration of the other Balkan countries.

Macedonia will be a particular focus of the meeting in the Bulgarian capital as it is expected that the European Commission will propose in December that Skopje start membership negotiations in 2013 which is earlier than expected.

Greece has blocked Macedonia’s joining of NATO and the start of negotiations with Brussels because of long-running dispute over the country’s name.

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev also has reservations about Macedonian membership, recently telling EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele that the country is not ready to join the union.