In a plenary session on Thursday, the European Parliament (EP) adopted resolutions on five Western Balkans states' progress toward the European Union, saying each country should improve in the areas of judiciary and media freedom, the Beta news agency reported.

Macedonia has been an EU candidate country since 2005 but is expected to start negotiations after Skopje and Athens agreed on Macedonia’s new name; Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina are recognised as potential candidate countries; Serbia, Montenegro and Albania have the status of candidate countries.

The EP said Montenegro had advanced the most and had come closest to joining the bloc out of all the Western Balkans countries.

Charles Tannock briefed the MEPs on Montenegro, saying Podgorica advanced the most in the negotiations with the EU.

The state was praised for its progress in fighting corruption, the introduction of the e-government, and transparency.

However, the report warned about poor results in fighting human trafficking and media freedoms in Montenegro.

Ivo Vajgl, the Rapporteur for Macedonia, said Skopje was committed to reforms, but there were concerns over organised crime and division of power.

On the other hand, Macedonia was highly praised for the agreement with Greece on a new name.

For decades the name dispute blocked Macedonia’s efforts to join NATO and the EU. The two countries finally agreed in June this year to solve their dispute and call the country Republic of North Macedonia.

A report on Bosnia and Herzegovina was not on agenda since the governments in the country have still not been formed following the October elections.

In his report on Kosovo Igor Soltes, the EU Rapporteur, called on Pristina’s government and opposition to work together in carrying out reforms EU expected since so far only limited progress was made.

The MEPs pointed out the importance of granting Pristina visa-free regime and called on five EU member states that had not recognised Kosovo’s independence to do so to make its relations with Serbia easier.

Knut Fleckenstein’s report on Albania noted the country made progress in five key priorities but warned about corruption and political instability as the key reason for which Tirana could not move further from an early phase of the accession negotiations.

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