Skopje, 26 July 2023 (MIA) - We are implementing what our Parliament adopted last year, prior to the opening of the negotiations. On 16 July 2022, our Parliament adopted the conclusions that included this task related to the constitutional revision and the incorporation of several communities in the Constitution Preamble. For a year now we have been trying, in different ways, to talk to the opposition and convince it that this is the right step, says Deputy PM for European Affairs Bojan Marichikj.

"Unfortunately, they have showed resistance and formed an anti-European bloc, an anti-EU bloc comprised of VMRO-DPMNE and Levica, which has escalated its rhetoric, and we witnessed this at yesterday's session. Those two parties had almost identical positions, convincing everyone this should never happen, because our EU path would stop, that now is not the time, that we should wait and seek better solutions and proposals. These are options leading us into a dead-end and long-standing blockade," Deputy PM Marichikj told Kanal 5.

He says that the positions we hear now were not overlooked during the negotiations.

"Everything that we hear today - delayed enforcement of the constitutional amendments or reciprocity in all aspects - nothing has been overlooked during the negotiations. We tried to talk about all of this but the current proposal represented a compromise that resulted from our demands to pass the constitutional amendments at the end of the process and have a certain reciprocity from Bulgaria regarding the Strasbourg judgments. We came to a point of reaching a compromise with Bulgaria, mediated by France, Germany, EU and all our partners. The essence of that compromise has been explained on many occasions," says Marichikj.

He recalls that putting the Macedonian language in the Negotiating Framework was one of the aspects that was insisted on, with Bulgaria demonstrating that North Macedonia can sign agreements with the EU in Macedonian language.

"Our battle is not to convince Bulgaria but the EU to not accept the Bulgarian position. Based on the things we got, we undertook the task of making the constitutional changes during the screening in return, and then resume the negotiations together with Albania," says Marichikj.

Photo: MIA archive