On 15.10.2019, the Infomax portal announced that the Presidency of the Europian Union Council, led by Finland, also withdrew the recommendation to start accession negotiations with the EU with Macedonia and Albania.
The text refers to the draft conclusions of a meeting of the Presidency with the Council of EU, which reportedly made a decision to withdraw the recommendations for the start of accession negotiations with the EU on North Macedonia and Albania adopted on June 19 this year.
Тhe published text is misinformation. The first thing to distinguish is the date for the start of negotiations from recommendation of accession talks. Namely, the European Commission has the authority to recommend the start of negotiations, and the European Council decides on the basis of the recommendation from the Commission. Therefore, the Council cannot withdraw the recommendation, as it is not within its competence, but only decides whether and when a particular country starts EU accession negotiations.
Starting in 2009, the European Commission recommends the Council to start negotiations with North Macedonia. This recommendation was conditioned in 2015 and 2016 due to the political crisis and the condition of the captive state that the EU stated in its 2015 progress report. The last recommendation for the start of negotiations was made in April 2018, after which the Council concluded that the way to start negotiations in June 2019 was pending, depending on the progress in key areas such as the judiciary, the fight against corruption and organized crime, intelligence services and public administration.
For its manipulative conclusion, that North Macedonia has allegedly been revoked the recommendation to start negotiations, the Infomax portal refers to this official document.
The truth is that this is a conclusion that was suggested by Finland. Namely, the ambassadors of the EU member states, at the meeting held in Luxembourg on 14.10.2019, did not approve the Finnish proposal, which as of 01.07.2019 is chairing the European Union Council.
Finland’s proposal was to set a date for the start of negotiations with North Macedonia, and in the meantime change the new negotiation methodology required by France, according to which an Intergovernmental Conference between the country and the governments of EU member states should be held at the latest in the first half of 2020.
Finland’s proposal was not adopted by the ambasador body COREPER (Committee of Permanent Representatives). This body prepares documents with proposals, which may then not be adopted by the EU Council. The proposals are later considered by the ministers, and if they do not comply, the final decision is discussed by the leaders of the EU member states during the European Council summit.
European leaders made the decision on whether to start negotiations with North Macedonia at a two-day European Council Summit held in Brussels on October 17th and 18th. The Council’s conclusion is that it will return to this issue before the EU-Western Balkans summit due in May 2020 in Zagreb.
Sharing Network Analysis:
This false post on the Infomax portal is shared on 21 Facebook pages. Sharing the social network Facebook starts from the Infomax Facebook page. From the analysis of the time of sharing this manipulative announcement, we can notice 4 time intervals in which the news was shared.
In the first 30 minutes of the announcement 4 Facebook pages shared the news in a 27 minute interval
Between 30 and 90 minutes of the announcement, 3 facebook pages shared the news in a 47 minute interval
У.Ж.Вмро-Дпмне Демир Хисар
About 2 hours after the announcement 2 facebook pages shared the news in just 2 minutes
Within 3 hours of the announcement, even 10 facebook pages shared the news in just 3 minutes
Although some of the Facebook pages of the last interval in their title contain the name of the party VMRO-DPMNE, still some of them are anonymous and download the contents of the anonymous page Pishman Adzija. Even so, the announcement time is also symptomatic. Namely, 10 pages publish the news in a period of only 3 minutes, which clearly indicates coordinated, non-authentic behavior. In addition, the content they transmit is false.
According to Nathaniel Glacier, who heads Facebook’s computer security department, unauthentic behavior is “when a group of Facebook pages or people work together to mislead others about who they are or what they are doing.” Coordinated non-authentic behavior is not unique only to Facebook or social media. People have been misleading others for centuries, and they continue to do so. When we disable one of these networks, it is because of their false behavior, not because of the content they share. In each of these cases, the people behind this activity coordinate with each other and use false profiles for misrepresentation, which is the basis for our action. We’re constantly working to detect and stop this kind of activity because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate with people. ”
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This project was funded in part through a U.S. Embassy grant. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the implementers/authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Government.
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