Baku, 13 March 2025 (MIA) - The European path of my country is paved with double standards, with new demands and conditions that have not been posed to other countries before, said President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova in her address Thursday at the XII Global Baku Forum within the panel discussion “The UN Pact for the Future: Building a New Global Consensus”.

The President said the country is not deviating from its strategic goal of membership within the European Union, nor the strategic partnership with the US, since, she said, “despite the current turmoil we believe in the importance of effective transatlanticism based on international rules and principles”, according to MIA’s reporter in Baku.

“But we are also aware that the principles and values are always violated before physical borders. Double standards generate precedents that transform into rules. And when compromises are being made with international rules and principles and with international law, the United Nations is also being compromised, the Charter is being devalued, and the international order undermined,” the President said.

Siljanovska-Davkova noted that the EU is for Europe what the UN is for the world, “a multilateral project with one top goal – peace on the continent”. 

“As the embodiment of multilateralism, the European Union has the obligation to impartially and consistently defend multilateralism. But the European path of my country is paved with double standards, with new demands and conditions that have not been posed to other countries. Recently at one of the panels at the Munich Security Conference the Macedonian Prime Minister posed a rhetorical question: why did all of Europe stand up to defend Ukraine when Russia denied the Ukrainian identity and language, while everyone is silent when a member state of the European Union denies the Macedonian identity and the Macedonian language. The answer by the moderator at the panel was ‘because you haven’t been attacked’. To be fair, they aren’t silent, instead they demand we accept the unjust conditions and negotiate about our national identity, our language, our culture, history, and even our constitutional order,” Siljanovska-Davkova said. 

The President said many opportunities to reform the UN have been missed, “while the outdated multilateral instruments of the United Nations can no longer respond to the current geopolitical, economic, environmental, demographic and technological challenges”.  

“Instead of multilateralism, we have multipolarization and a growing geopolitical rivalry. International law has eroded because of the double standards. New conflicts for resources, water, fuels and raw minerals are flaring up. It seems as if the fight with nature has been already lost. International relations have grown unpredictable. Instead of Kant’s perpetual peace, which some of the authors of the UN Charter dreamt of, it seems as if we are in a pre-Hobbeslike state,” the President said. 

According to Siljanovska-Davkova small countries should be the most vocal supporters of the UN Pact for the Future. 

“What awaits us if we miss this opportunity? Will we have divided nations instead of the United Nations, relegated to a relic of the past, blocked because of the veto and paralyzed due to the countless crises and challenges? Would we split the world into zones of influence and interests, parallel orders that would gravitate around various geopolitical centers, each with its own system of values, rules and principles, with their own idea of human rights and freedoms? Would we live in a world without universal values and with no awareness and care about the global goods and the future of those yet to be born? This is something we mustn’t allow,” President Siljanovska-Davkova said. 

As part of her visit to Azerbaijan, President Siljanovska-Davkova met with the Speaker of Parliament, Sahiba Gafarova, and Prime Minister Ali Asadov on Wednesday.  She kicked off her visit to Azerbaijan on Tuesday with a meeting with her counterpart, President Ilham Aliyev. 

Photo: MIA