Screening is a formal and technical operation carried out by the European Commission in order to prepare the accession negotiations and is an analytical presentation of EU law and the situation in the candidate country in relation to it. More specifically, as a process, it aims, on the one hand, to familiarize the candidate countries with the legal heritage of the European Union and thus prepare them for the negotiations. On the other hand, the aim is to enable the Commission and the Member States to assess the level of preparedness of the candidate countries, to be informed about their future plans and to obtain preliminary guidance on the issues that will be most relevant in the negotiations.
Screening is carried out by chapter, except for chapters: 34 "Institutions" and 35 "Other issues", which are the subject of negotiations in the final phase of the accession process. First, explanatory meetings are held at which Commission representatives present EU law in detail, followed by bilateral meetings with each country. After completing these two phases, the Commission prepares a report on the screening and presents it to the Council. After the screening of the relevant chapter, the Council decides to open negotiations, on the recommendation of the Commission.
Following the decision of the European Council of June 2018 and the provision of a clear perspective for the start of accession negotiations in June 2019, the Republic of North Macedonia began the phase of explanatory meetings (calendar) on 27 September 2018.
In order to increase transparency in relation to this extremely important process, and to inform civil society, professional associations, the academic and business community, as well as the general public, we are sharing below the presentations from the meetings held so far.