French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said he was ready to open negotiations on EU membership with Albania and North Macedonia if a forthcoming report confirmed enough progress on reforms. The two Balkan countries were left outraged by a French-led veto on opening accession talks last October, after Macron insisted on tighter EU entry requirements. Macron said he was ready to move ahead if a European Commission review due next month confirmed the countries had made advancements. "If the results are positive and the confidence is established we should be able to open the negotiations," he told the Munich Security Conference. Many EU member states were dismayed after Albania and North Macedonia ran into a French "non" despite both countries pushing through major reforms, including in the battle against corruption. North Macedonia even changed its name from Macedonia to appease Greece. But Macron insisted France was not alone in stalling the countries' EU hopes. "Several states were against opening the negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania," Macron said, rejecting the "French veto" claim. In response to French demands to rework the EU's entry requirements before opening the gate to new members, the European Commission has proposed a tougher and more political admissions process. Under the new proposal, the accession process would focus on "fundamental reforms" first, and create an option for membership talks to be "put on hold in certain areas... or suspended overall." Macron said an overhaul of the entry process was a French precondition as the current one was "too bureaucratic and technical". The enlargement process also needed to be "reversible", he said. "We need to be able to move much faster with countries that are clearly making progress," he said. "And we need to be able to go back a step if it's not working." EU enlargement commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said earlier this month that the Commission was still fighting to open accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia "very soon". vl-mfp/ach