This thesis examines North Macedonia’s response to the European Council’s decision of rejecting the opening of accession negotiations, resulting from a veto by French President Emmanuel Macron in...Show moreThis thesis examines North Macedonia’s response to the European Council’s decision of rejecting the opening of accession negotiations, resulting from a veto by French President Emmanuel Macron in October 2019. North Macedonia is considered to be a pioneer in complying with the EU’s conditionality framework since 2001 and has received the European Commission’s positive recommendations to open the accession negotiations in 2009 and 2019. Although the EU’s incentive-based conditionality strategy is considered to be effective in academia, a scenario whereby a candidate country has adopted the EU conditions and was nevertheless rejected by the European Council has not been analysed yet. Consequently, this thesis is based on qualitative primary and secondary data, in which interviews played the essential sources of information. Rationalist and constructivist theories in EU conditionality studies play the fundamental basis as explanatory behavioural models in this research. The results of this research reveal that North Macedonia has not been discouraged by the French veto and eventually implemented final provisions of the EU integration process. On 24 March 2020, North Macedonia received the green light to the start of the accession talks.Show less
