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Skopje – Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski stated today that during his visit to Brussels last week, it was announced that Albania would most likely start negotiations and separate from our country, but he emphasized that this is a bad message to Macedonian citizens, because the country, as he said, on its over two-decade-long path towards EU integration has done many things, more than any other candidate or current member, most of which have nothing to do with the Copenhagen criteria. He wished neighboring Albania much success in quickly completing the negotiation process and said, maybe one day “our paths will meet again on that trajectory towards full membership in the EU.”
– We are the only case in which bilateral agreements are conditions in the Negotiation Framework. I regret that the previous Government accepted everything exhibitionistically, waving the European flag while robbing its own people. We see that the situation is as it is, and I share the impression with a huge number of Macedonian citizens that we should no longer accept conditions at the expense of national concessions, or identity concessions without guarantees, said Mickoski in response to a journalist’s question.
The Prime Minister emphasized that the current setup of things regarding our membership is a dictate and that he conveyed his position in the meetings in Brussels. – For me, this is a dictate, if this is the condition for Macedonia to continue negotiating, then, I said it in Brussels – no thank you. These are not the European values that my generation fell in love with, but those values defined by Adenauer, De Gasperi, and Schuman, and that is why I shared the idea, let’s talk, don’t dictate to us, don’t condition us with a dictate, I want us to talk as long as necessary to find a solution, obviously, we don’t have a solution now, stressed Mickoski.
He made a parallel between the constitutional amendments from the Prespa Agreement and added that just as they came into force after Greece ratified the country’s NATO accession Protocol, the same should apply to the current change of the Constitution.
– Here we will complete the procedure, we have 80 deputies, but the amendments we pass should be valid and effective when Bulgaria ratifies the accession protocol for our EU membership, said Mickoski. (September 26)