The day, which many had previously called "historic," began with lamentations and warnings.

"Welcome to Ukraine," said Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania, upon arriving at the European Council building in the morning.

Candidate status for the country is a good thing.

In the very next sentence he added: "I hope that the Ukrainian people will not have many illusions about this."

Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

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Albania has been a candidate for membership for eight years, and North Macedonia for seventeen years.

Two years ago, the member states decided to open accession negotiations with both states.

They're still waiting for that.

As a protest, they and Serbia had considered not even coming to Brussels on Thursday.

The fact that they did it after all was due to the signals that had come from Sofia the day before.

Petkov lost a vote of no confidence

Boyko Borissov, now leader of the opposition in Bulgaria, gave up the blockade against negotiations with North Macedonia, for which he himself had been responsible as head of government.

A majority was suddenly within reach, even without the ruling party.

Prime Minister Kyrill Petkov also lost a vote of no confidence on Wednesday evening.

After that, everything seemed possible, even a motion submitted by the opposition to clear the way for Skopje.

But nothing either – as Petkow himself made clear when he arrived in Brussels on Thursday.

He let it be known that there would certainly be no further voting on the same day, perhaps in the following days.

However, his opponent Borisov is not to be trusted: "This guy says one thing and does the other." In addition, the Macedonian parliament would also have to agree to a compromise - where the next government crisis was already looming, precisely because of this.

These dislocations were the background noise that kept coming to the fore throughout the day, a reminder of how uncertain and confused EU accession can be.

In the morning, the heads of state and government met with the leaders of the six Western Balkan countries.

Two hours were allotted for this – it then became four, because everyone in the room took the floor and many had more on their minds than could be said in three minutes.

This was later characterized as a “frank and open” exchange – in other words, people talked taciturnly.

At least that made enough impression that the EU heads of government continued this debate when they were alone in the afternoon.

Actually, right at the beginning they wanted to decide on the applications for membership from Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, which had been received in Brussels at the beginning of March.

That has now been delayed.

However, what were a few hours in relation to the years that the Balkans have been sitting in the waiting room? 

The difference: a war instigated by Russia.

Ukraine has already lost a fifth of its area - as well as thousands of citizens and probably even more soldiers.

Moldova, in turn, fears that Russia's next step will be to extend its land bridge to Crimea.

As far as Transnistria, the part of the country that split off in 1990 and has been dependent on Russia ever since, and possibly beyond.