Shtip, 14 November 2024 (MIA) – The goal of our diplomacy is to close the issue with neighboring Bulgaria and make the official start of the negotiations accordingly, "Iustinianus Primus" Faculty of Law professor, Vasko Naumovski, said on Thursday. However, according to him, although a new government will be formed in Bulgaria, it will not be stable and therefore, he added, a solution in terms of the bilateral dispute is less likely. 

"Elections were held in Bulgaria, and according to the initial announcements we hear from the leaders of the political parties there, I would not be very optimistic that we can hope for the formation of a stable political government in the near future, and it is very likely that during the coming year we will witness another early parliamentary election in Bulgaria. Which means it will be even less likely to reach a solution regarding our bilateral dispute. The communication remains, between our political leaders and the President, Radev. However, I personally think that until there is a stable political government in Bulgaria, we would not have a partner to talk to about any changes to what was agreed upon by the previous government," said Naumovski. 

He pointed out that seeing the previous cycles of enlargement, the EU tends to admit more countries in one cycle. But in our case, he added, the country is in an absurd situation, because there is already talk of membership of Ukraine and Moldova, while the Western Balkan countries are much ahead of these countries but have bilateral obstacles.

"This is the second problem that the EU has, the lack of a mechanism to overcome those bilateral issues, i.e. the issues that exist between an EU member and a candidate country, and instead of focusing on the Copenhagen criteria and meeting European standards, we are dealing with issues related to history, which are in no way related to the fulfilment of requirements," Naumovski said. 

Asked whether the new U.S. President's administration would help our country to join the EU, Naumovski said as of January the new U.S. administration will seriously tackle resolving some of the issues in the world, including the complete unification of Europe.

"What can be assumed is that if we witness a stronger engagement of U.S. diplomacy in the Balkans in closing the issues that are an obstacle to the EU enlargement, we can hope for some encouragement from the U.S. administration to the candidate countries, the member states and European institutions to close all issues and finally move towards completing the EU enlargement process with the Western Balkan countries," Naumovski said.

MPs Monika Zajkova and Marija Petrushevska also attended Thursday's panel discussion on “Regional Cooperation and European Integration - Western Balkans and the EU Agenda” at the Goce Delchev University in Shtip. 

MP Zajkova said it would be healthy to have a politically stable government in Bulgaria in order to unlock the process of talks and what would be beneficial for Macedonia, which is to start the negotiations on the chapters as soon as possible.

MP Petrushevska noted that today was an opportunity to discuss an important topic with the students, which is the European Agenda and the Western Balkans. She added that she expects a democratic debate where views will be exchanged with the students, who are the future of the country. The event is organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies from Brussels, in cooperation with the University "Goce Delchev" - Shtip and the Academy for European Integration from Skopje. 

Photo: MIA