Mickoski before the visit to Brussels: We have prepared the highest quality document for the Growth Plan, we will also defend national interests

Skopje – Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, ahead of tomorrow’s visit to Brussels, pointed out that the agenda will include the Growth Plan, and if it comes to the matter of the European integration process, he will defend and protect Macedonian national interests. The Government’s position on the constitutional amendments, as he said, is clear, and they want to know that if they start on that path, they will complete it in three, four or five years at most and become an EU member, as promised in 2018.

Mickoski said that the Government has prepared a fantastic document for the Growth Plan, which was in a stalemate for many months, and has been submitted to the European Commission both in Skopje and in Brussels. – Upon forming the Government, we submitted it to the office of the European Commission here in Skopje, and then it arrived in Brussels. That is the purpose of my visit and a working lunch with the old-new President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, said Mickoski. 

If it comes to the matter of the European integration process, as he said, he is the one who should defend and uphold Macedonian national interests, as in the past, when we were in opposition, and now as the Government.

– Now we have even more arguments. We want to present the arguments, we want to convey the frustration felt by Macedonian citizens, because it is great, huge, I would say, after more than two and a half decades since we started this path towards the European Union and more than a decade and a half since we officially received the first positive report from the European Commission to start these negotiations. We are not able to start not because we do not respect the Copenhagen criteria, but because there are artificially imposed obstacles, which no other nation, no other state has had, said Mickoski.

In response to a journalist’s question about whether the idea of constitutional amendments with delayed effect could also be part of the talks in Brussels, Mickoski replied that he would not like to comment, but that the Government’s positions on this issue are clear.

– The position of VMRO DPMNE, the position of the Government is clear. My position is clear. Enough defeats, enough policies and diplomacy of bent spine and shoe kissing. Now we have a policy and diplomacy, which is based on a two-way street. I want to talk about values, about respecting human rights and to know that if we start, as promised in that 2018, that in three, four, five years at most, we will complete that path and become a member of the European Union, said Mickoski, adding that everything else are stories and traps to which neither the Government nor he as a person intend to succumb to.