The EU and North Macedonia sign migration agreement

The European Union and North Macedonia have signed an agreement on border management cooperation. The accord involves the EU’s frontier agency, Frontex.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Dimitar Kovačevski, witnessed the signing of the agreement in Skopje.

Von der Leyen is on a 4-day tour of the Balkans and hinted that North Macedonia’s efforts to move closer to the EU family are bearing fruit.

“The negotiation process is gaining momentum and does very good work being done and finally indeed on your language. I promised to you that we would get the frontex agreement signed and translate it into the Macedonian language, no footnotes, no asterisks on equal footing with all the 24 languages of the European Union. And today we delivered”.

On her tour, Ursula von der Leyen hopes to strengthen Frontext’s cooperation with the Western Balkans to improve security at the EU’s external borders.

Frontex already conducts joint operations with countries such as Albania, Montenegro and Serbia. However, it has been accused of allowing illegal pushback of migrants, notably in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey.

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