site.btaFormer North Macedonia President Pendarovski: Skopje Halts Momentum toward EU Membership

In an interview with Deutsche Welle published on Saturday, the former president of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski said that the current government of his country has no intention to move towards the EU under the current conditions and no intention to amend the national Constitution.

Pendarovski said: "We are the first case in the history of European integration of a candidate for membership that sets conditions to an EU Member State... To have Bulgaria recognize 14 verdicts from Strasbourg [the European Court of Human Rights], to recognize the existence of a Macedonian minority, etc. All these messages are intended for the public at home. This government has no intention of amending the Constitution, of including the Bulgarians, or of moving towards Europe. And this is the only condition."

Pendarovski believes that the current president of North Macedonia, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, would be unable to make progress on the issue of the country's European integration in potential bilateral talks with her Bulgarian counterpart, Rumen Radev, at the NATO summit in The Hague in late June, because Radev is the "initiator of the blockade" of Skopje's European integration. Pendarovski shared: "I have had many conversations with him at international events. He attended my inauguration in 2019, and even then, he strongly upheld the views of Bulgarian nationalism rooted in the communist era."

The former president of North Macedonia stated that it would be unreasonable to expect a solution from the person who created the problem to begin with, especially considering the fact that this person believes in what he is doing.

Pendarovski noted that it is not a coincidence that the government of the Republic of North Macedonia chooses Hungary as its strategic economic partner among the 27 EU Member States. He added: "You can imagine what the real ambitions for European integration are of this government, which says that a lot can be learned from [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban." In his words, the government of North Macedonia is moving towards countries that have anti-European views, which are the "black sheep of the EU".