Anger and regret over EU block on Skopje, Tirana

There was widespread frustration and disappointment, particularly among eastern European countries keen to broaden the EU club, at the failure of the 28 leaders to agree to start formal accession negotiations with Skopje and Tirana.

Leaders were deadlocked after some seven hours of heated backroom wrangling at a Brussels summit, with France alone in rejecting North Macedonia but joined by Denmark and the Netherlands in refusing Albania.

Johannes Hahn, the European commissioner who has led efforts to push the two countries to reform to fit EU norms, said the leaders had damaged the bloc's credibility "not only in the Western Balkans but beyond".

"This is a matter of extreme disappointment," he tweeted.

"To refuse acknowledgement of proven progress will have negative consequences, including the risk of destabilisation of the Western Balkans, with full impact on the EU."

North Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov urged the EU to come clean about its true intentions.

"If there is no more consensus on the European future of the Western Balkans... the citizens deserve to know," he tweeted.

Repeated delays

The summit deadlock came days after EU ministers hit a similar impasse at talks in Luxembourg -- following two earlier delays by EU countries on making a decision.

Apart from France, all the other EU states accept that North Macedonia has made enough progress on reforms -- including changing its name from Macedonia to appease Greece -- to start talks.

But Albania has less support, with the Netherlands and Denmark joining France in voicing serious reservations about its efforts against corruption and organised crime.

Austrian Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein said the summit failure was "extremely regrettable".

"I have spoken to the two prime ministers to express my great disappointment, and they are also extremely disappointed," she told reporters in Brussels.

"This is not a good sign for the solidarity of the EU or the stability of the region."

The European Commission has said both countries have done enough to at least begin talks, but Macron now says this should not happen until the whole accession process has been reformed, arguing that it does not work properly.

But diplomats suspect the French are playing tough for domestic political reasons linked to immigration, and there is frustration that Macron appears to be trying to move the goalposts.

"These countries deserve it, they fulfil the criteria, the momentum is right," said one diplomatic source.

"It's not fair to change the rules of the game in the middle of the game."

Another said "there's no logic to it. It's incoherent -- an excuse."

After the earlier failure in Luxembourg another diplomat accused France of "repeating the same stupid arguments again and again", warning Paris would bear "responsibility for the consequences of this".

Politicians in North Macedonia and Albania have warned that their people's patience with the EU is not unlimited and repeated rejections risk emboldening nationalist and pro-Russian forces.