In his opinion article in the Politico’s European edition, Florian Bieber, a professor for Southeast European history and politics at the University of Graz, wrote what had been said by many politicians after the European Council (EUCO) refused to set a date for the opening of the European Union’s accession talks with Skopje and Tirana – “the EU needs to develop a new foreign policy in the region that does not focus solely on the membership process at the cost of good diplomacy,” the Beta news agency reported on Thursday.

The EUCO move triggered a lot of anger among some EU officials, prompted early elections in North Macedonia and fear of third countries’ filling in the gap in the Western Balkans (WB) left in deep uncertainty regarding its EU future.

Belgrade said it would not complain and would wait for the EU to decide. But, it added, despite its foreign policy's priority to become an EU full member state, Serbia would cooperate with others, like Russia and China, what did not make the EU happy.

Zoran Zaev, North Macedonia’s Prime Minister, warned about the possibility that “populists and nationalist” could return to power in his country after the EU broke its promise to set a date following the name deal Skopje made with Athens.

“For the EU,this could be the moment to finally focus on developing better tools to deal with autocrats in the region who have few incentives to let go of their informal control of national institutions. The Commission identified this as a problem last year, but has been too timid in its attempt to deal with it, choosing instead to make the enlargement process more complex and cumbersome, and kick the can down the road,” Beiber, also the coordinator of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG), wrote in Politico.

He added that Serbia’s “President Aleksandar Vucic and others in the region have made moves toward the EU in theory while undermining democratic institutions and independent media in practice. That trajectory isn’t in anyone’s best interest.”