site.btaNorth Macedonia’s PM Mickoski Comments on Country’s EU Accession Progress

The Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia, Hristijan Mickoski, expects the European Parliament’s report on his country's progress toward joining the EU to be adopted at the meeting of the EP Committee on Foreign Affairs on June 24. “If it is not voted on then, North Macedonia’s citizens should be aware that this is not a matter of including several hundred citizens, part of the Bulgarian community (in the Republic of North Macedonia), in the Constitution, but rather the problem lies in the separate Macedonian identity and the Macedonian language,” Mickoski said in response to a journalist's question after attending the commissioning of the completely renovated premises of the administrative service of the Ministry of Interior in Skopje.

According to him, the problem is that in several places in the draft report by Austrian MEP and rapporteur for North Macedonia in the EP Thomas Waitz, "the specific Macedonian identity and the Macedonian language" are mentioned.

“That is the essence, that is the problem, everything else has nothing to do with reality. At first glance, this should not have been a problem. At least that is what the previous government convinced us of. However, we saw that for certain MEPs, especially those from the East, this is a problem. And they add one word to the specific Macedonian identity and Macedonian language – “current”. So, Macedonian identity and the Macedonian language are a problem after all,” Mickoski said.

According to him, “senior politicians from Bulgaria have turned to senior politicians in Brussels” to postpone the vote on the report “so as not to create a bigger problem, to get the euro through” and “to prevent more people from gathering on the streets”.

Mickoski said that he had met Thomas Waitz only once, when the rapporteur visited the government in Skopje “together with a group of MEPs, including two Bulgarians,” but he had not had a personal conversation with him.

“It is our legitimate right as a government to travel the world and present our arguments. This is our fundamental human right. In recent months, we have been fighting like lions all over the world. In Washington, Brussels, London, Berlin... to regain those lost positions that the previous government sold off just to stay in power,” the Prime Minister stressed.

At the request of the rapporteur for the Republic of North Macedonia, Thomas Waitz, the consideration of the report on June 4 was postponed to June 24. In an interview with 360 Degrees, he stated that the report “contains several references to the recognition of Macedonian identity and language”.

On June 4, the Committee on Foreign Affairs at the European Parliament agreed to postpone the vote on a report on the progress of North Macedonia towards EU accession on a proposal of rapporteur Thomas Waitz. The vote in the parliamentary committee is scheduled to take place on June 24 and in the EP plenary in Strasbourg in July.

All Bulgarian MEPs sent a letter expressing doubts about the report and reporting irregularities, including unauthorized and premature leaks of inside parliamentary information, key elements of the draft document and controversial amendments, to officials in Skopje, the GERB/EPP press office said. North Macedonia's Prime Minister's statement of June 1 that he was familiar with the report in advance was cited as an example.