Shtip, 20 September 2024 (MIA) - My message to the people in Brussels is clear - if you really want us to be part of the European family, then there is a way, if there is a will, there is a way. We can no longer accept ultimatums, at least not while I lead the Macedonian Government, nor is there a price that can convince me to accept an ultimatum. I want these citizens and my homeland to join that family based on the merit system, not on the basis of more national humiliation and identity concessions, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said Friday asked by a reporter to summarize yesterday's messages exchanged at the meetings with top officials in Brussels.   

Mickoski, who was in an official visit to Brussels on Thursday accompanied by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Timcho Mucunski, and Minister of European Affairs, Orhan Murtezani, attended a working lunch hosted by European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, together with the other Western Balkan leaders, and also met with European Council President, Charles Michel, the European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi, as well as with the Director-General of the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR), Gert Jan Koopman.   

He reiterated today in Shtip that if the EU goes by the merit system, the country could start the negotiations tomorrow even, but he noted that they obviously allow one member state to bilateralize the process with something which is not the position of the other 26 member states.

He pointed out that the pacta sunt servanda principle must also apply in relation to Bulgaria, adding that if it applies to the Prespa Agreement, it should also apply to the Friendship Treaty with Bulgaria. He noted that the "French proposal" is not an agreement, adding that according to the Friendship Treaty, Bulgaria should support the country in the European integration process, instead of hindering its path. 

"What has been required from us for more than two decades was the result of bilateral disputes, not the Copenhagen criteria or based on the fulfilment of goals and policies, but it was rather national concessions. One of the interlocutors at the lunch said, it was one of the Western Balkan leaders, that sacrifices need to be made. I would say that what the Macedonian citizens and Macedonia did is not a sacrifice, we made many sacrifices, but it is humiliation. That's what has been happening to us for the past two and a half decades. Unfortunately, some people think that a sacrifice is changing a law or two, but for us, the sacrifice was a change of national symbols, identity marks, something that, unfortunately, the corrupt political elites, unable to deal with facts and arguments, did while robbing and humiliating their own people, and they were not ashamed of humiliating the people, and that is something that this generation in this Macedonian Government has the task of correcting," Mickoski pointed out. 

He said that essential topics were discussed at the meetings in Brussels, serious arguments and facts were presented and interlocutors agreed that the country's future is in the European family, as well as that the people and the country have done a lot on the path towards the EU. 

As regards former Bulgarian PM and GERB leader Boyko Borissov's demand that Deputy PM and Minister of Transport and Communications Aleksandar Nikoloski resigns, after Nikoloski's Alfa TV appearance in which he said the absence of the Macedonian flag in a recent photo of President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova visiting President Rumen Radev was uncivilized and disrespectful, Mickoski said that Nikoloski has already responded and that he has nothing to add, but he noted that "as a country we should look at our own interest and not fall into the trap of their election campaign".

"I regret that in the absence of a serious vision, projects and strategy and policies, the main topic in Bulgaria is Macedonia and the Macedonian issue, but that is their choice, not ours. I wish them a successful campaign and finally, for the seventh time, electing a stable political government with which we as a government will be able to build actual good-neighbourly relations and fully walk the path of our country's integration within the EU. In fact, that is what is expected from good neighbours and that is why there is an agreement, which is called a Treaty on Good Neighbourliness," said Mickoski.

Photo: MIA