site.btaEuropean Parliament Rapporteur on North Macedonia “Tried to Prepare Balanced Report”

Austrian MEP Thomas Waitz, the European Parliament rapporteur for North Macedonia, said on Friday that the draft report on the country’s progress in European integration "repeats what the European Commission clearly said: a few [more] minorities must be included in the Constitution” before Skopje starts negotiations for joining the bloc.

Waitz made the remark for North Macedonia’s MRT 1 television. This English-language article is based on a Bulgarian-language dispatch from BTA’s Skopje correspondent.

The European lawmaker said: “These constitutional amendments were announced in the shared interest of the EU and North Macedonia, and Bulgaria also agreed not to block the process if the amendments pass in the parliament [...] This was agreed at an earlier stage. I was not yet a rapporteur at that time. This is the agreement which North Macedonia signed with the [European] Commission and the EU, with Bulgaria’s consent, and this is the way to go, yes.”

The interest which the draft report has drawn, not only in North Macedonia, is partly caused by North Macedonia Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski’s remark that the future report will recognize “the centuries-old, unique Macedonian identity and language.” Asked about his take on it, Waitz said that the draft “has a few references to the recognition of the Macedonian language and the Macedonian identity.”

He noted: “Personally, I regret that this is necessary because there is no doubt that the Macedonians are Macedonians and the Macedonian language is a Macedonian language. Personally, I do not see a need to state it. But due to some issues which were raised, particularly by the Bulgarian side, [calling into question] Macedonian as an independent language different from Bulgarian, and because the Macedonian identity has been questioned not just by [your] Bulgarian neighbours but also by [your] Greek neighbours before that, it was necessary to mention it, and it is included in the draft.”

Waitz expects that the report on North Macedonia’s progress on the path of European integration will be adopted “because there is a large majority of groups in the European Parliament which support the process of accession of North Macedonia.” He admitted, however, that the Bulgarian MEPs are displeased with the text.

“They even attack me personally for ‘bias’,” Waitz complained. “In some cases I am accused of being corrupted by North Macedonia, which I totally deny. There have been no kickbacks, no services, nothing. I tried, together with my Liberal colleagues, the Social-Democrats and the EPP, to prepare a realistic report about the situation we are in. I refer [in the draft] to cases of hate speech, hate crimes against various groups. Sadly, we see this in various countries. I tried to get the Bulgarian MEPs involved intensively and to include their legitimate demands to name the Bulgarian community. My draft even refers to it directly once as a Bulgarian community. So, I really tried to prepare a balanced report to encourage our Bulgarian colleagues to give up blocking the accession process and to join the constructive course. I still hope that during next week’s vote they will join the constructive course in favour of the accession of their neighbour North Macedonia to the EU.”

Waitz noted that the North Macedonia progress report of the European Parliament and the EU will not seek “to interfere in the bilateral relations between North Macedonia and Bulgaria.”