Skopje, 12 June 2025 (MIA) - Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said Thursday he would not attend the upcoming NATO Summit in The Hague, with President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova set to take part.

Considering reports coming from Bulgaria that Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov would replace President Rumen Radev for the event, PM Mickoski said that any initiative for a meeting should be accepted, in order to demonstrate a proactive approach.

"European Council President Antonio Costa put forward the proposal for a meeting at the summit sidelines, and we immediately accepted, so that the two heads of state discuss the matter, facilitated by the EU. There was an idea that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and representatives of the U.S. administration are also present at the meeting, during which we would present our arguments. The Bulgarian PM and I attended the summit in Washington, so it was now logical that the presidents attended this summit, as announced, but they changed their minds at the last minute, meaning that the PM will come," Mickoski told reporters.

He added that any initiative for a meeting between the President and the PM should be accepted.

"We must be proactive and demonstrate that a few hundreds of our citizens who claim that the Bulgarian language is their mother tongue is not the issue, but that the problem is much bigger, a decades-old policy and strategy that had been drafted and could not have been implemented without a few quislings who were part of the former government," said Mickoski.

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