Skopje, 15 March 2023 (MIA) - Sweden will support North Macedonia’s EU accession and Skopje is to back Sweden’s accession to NATO, foreign ministers of the two countries, Bujar Osmani and Tobias Billström concluded during their meeting on Wednesday.

Billström reaffirmed Sweden's support for our European integration process, underscoring the need of adopting constitutional changes, with the aim of continuation of negotiation process and paving the way to EU membership by 2030, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release.

Osmani thanked Sweden for its continuous commitment to our country's EU accession process, especially in the field of development cooperation, within which North Macedonia is again among the priority partner countries of Swedish development aid in areas that are most useful for our reforms from the accession process.

Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Bujar Osmani, underlined that North Macedonia remains a strong supporter of Sweden’s accession to NATO, which will contribute to strengthening the security of the Euro-Atlantic area.

“The accelerated country’s EU integration and faster Sweden's membership in NATO will deter the malicious influences of third factors that are trying to undermine the security and stability of the European continent. Therefore today, we once again pledged to jointly help each other for membership in the EU and NATO,” Osmani said, who is paying his first official visit to the Kingdom of Sweden.

In his capacity as OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Osmani introduced the interlocutor to the current events regarding the OSCE Chairmanship through the prism of the established priorities, in which Ukraine remains our main priority and a key security issue within the OSCE 2023. They also discussed the regional dynamics, which the two ministers considered to be of crucial importance for the security and stability of the region, but also of Europe.

“The current North Macedonia’s chairpersonship of the SEECP as well as of the USA-Adriatic Charter (A5) were noted, while the role of North Macedonia as an active actor in generating stability and peace in the region was positively evaluated,” reads the press release.

Osmani also met with the Swedish Parliament Speaker Andreas Norlén and discussed excellent parliamentary cooperation and with the Director-General of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) Carin Jämtin and referred to benefits of Swedish development cooperation to our EU perspective.

Osmani’s delegation includes the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on European Affairs, Arber Ademi.

Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs