Skopje, 5 July 2022 (MIA) – According to information from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, something unbefitting of a NATO country and of a country striving to become a EU member is being planned at the protests, said Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski at Tuesday's joint press conference with European Council President, Charles Michel. According to the PM, the protests taking place in front of the Government building are organized by political parties which have explicitly positioned themselves against the country’s NATO and EU membership. “North Macedonia is a democratic country with an orderly legislation and institutions regarding the realization of the citizens’ rights on any basis. Anyone can protest. I have protested as well. When the rights of the students had to be protected and when the rights of the professors had to be protected. But, it has never occurred, except once in the past and again now, for hooded individuals to protest, to aim at the police, so that we end up with injured policemen. You saw yesterday that the police retreated,” said Kovachevski. He emphasized that the proposal being discussed is by the European Union, i.e., he said, 27 member states represented by the President of the European Council Michel delivered a proposal to North Macedonia, so that negotiations can begin. “We are all represented by the Members of Parliament, regardless of what political party they belong to. And through the MPs, we all have to decide whether we want to begin negotiations. The policemen, who are only doing their duty, are not to blame, neither is the building to blame. The proposal comes from 27 countries, it is a part of a wide consultative process in the country. No one is hiding anything from anyone,” said Kovachevski, adding that the European Council President will present the proposal to the parliamentary party coordinators as well. According to Kovachevski, the process is transparent, because, he said, everything proposed by the EU is being shared with the public, in English and in Macedonian. ad/ba/