Macedonian Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski announced that his government will not enter "a naive process in which it will only make concessions without a clear guarantee that the country will be part of the European family", BGNES reported.
"Since no one can guarantee us anything, we cannot be as optimistic as we would like to be. That is why we will go parallel with these two processes - full EU membership and writing the homework, but we are ready for talks. From what I hear, there is interest from certain people to move the region towards the EU. There is no doubt that we are also part of this region. We support regional initiatives such as the Berlin Process, CEFTA, etc., because through them we can more easily articulate our views and we have to be precise in this, but our main strategic goal is full membership," the prime minister said.
Mickoski pointed out that North Macedonia has long deserved to join the EU:
"I will remind you, more than two and a half decades after we signed the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, almost two decades after we are candidates, and more than 15 years after we received a positive report on the start of the negotiations, for reasons already known, the Macedonian people have not been able to move this process forward".
Mickoski emphasized that constitutional changes (inclusion of the bulgarians) "with delayed effect" are a possible solution if Skopje receives guarantees.
"One of the possible solutions is this, but on the condition that we have a clear guarantee for full EU membership and that it is within the framework of those promises they made in 2018. That (the process) will last a maximum of four years to five years and we as a government will do everything possible to implement these negotiations. But from what I see at the moment and what we are hearing, nobody can guarantee us anything. If there is a two-way street on the other side, we are here, we are ready to talk. It's not enough for just one to want it," he said while on a visit to the Gazi Baba municipality with Education and Science Minister Vesna Janevska.
PM Mickoski confirmed that the government would react to the closure of the Macedonian Language Centre in Lerin, but promised that Skopje would not allow itself to be drawn into the internal political debate of neighbouring Greece.
The Court of Appeal in Kozani, Greece, recently made a decision cancelling the registration of the Centre. Activists have announced that they will use all legal means and that they will appeal to the Supreme Court of Greece and the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
"This is another indication that only our country insists on good neighborliness, but we will not be discouraged. I am aware that provocations are needed there to make us react and reciprocate by doing something that has nothing to do with our interests, that is, against the realisation of our second objective, which is full EU membership. Once again, our EU partners can see our neighbours failing to respect what has been agreed. We as politicians can provide the logistics, there is the European Court of Human Rights, and so on. We will not react as we have in the past. We are aware that our neighbours will do everything to drag us into their internal political discussion and make Macedonia an issue, but we are responsible, mature and we will not allow it," the North Macedonian prime minister also said. | BGNES
