Skopje, 25 August 2022 (MIA) - President Stevo Pendarovski has said he isn't satisfied with the country's EU integration process so far since it has only recently started the negotiations to join the bloc after being at the threshold for 17 years as a candidate for EU membership. "We were in fact forgotten by the European Union with a series of blackmails in the meantime. We somehow managed to get to some kind of compromise with the Republic of Bulgaria with the help of the French presidency and to start negotiating. Looking back, we'd been granted candidate status in 2005 and even now we are starting to negotiate. No one can say we have made a great achievement in that regard," Pendarovski says in an interview with Anadolu news agency on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between North Macedonia and Turkey. Being in the threshold for so long was not because of lack of reform but due to open blockades, he stresses. The President also notes that "several European countries weren't interested in the Balkan region", recalling that Montenegro and Serbia have been in negotiations to become EU members for ten years and adding that all Western Balkan countries are waiting to make headway toward the EU. "Bosnia and Herzegovina is the country that had objectively suffered the most from the disintegration of former Yugoslavia recording the most victims, over 100,000 dead and some estimate that over two million had been displaced. Due to the well-known contradictions within, the country cannot progress. However, Europe too - because some countries are closer to one entity and others to the other entity - don't seem to be extending a hand to get it out from the abyss it is falling into," says Pendarovski. According to him, due to this situation, young people from the entire Balkans are leaving and not a single country now has that many inhabitant as they did 20-30 years ago. Asked about the constitutional changes stemming from the bilateral protocol signed with Bulgaria, the head of state expressed skepticism that the current opposition in Parliament would vote in favor of constitutional changes. Pendarovski says the documents signed so far pose no threat to the Macedonian identity and language. "You cannot force anyone to vote if the current opposition believes that the documents are detrimental to the Macedonian people. I don't think they are. I believe it will be very hard a two third majority in the incumbent Parliament to be secured, because as far as I believe the opposition in the Macedonian Parliament is reading the agreement with Bulgaria, in fact the negotiating framework with the EU, through partisan prism," says Pendarovski. On the political polarization in the country, the President says it prevent a consensus to be reached even on strategic issues, such as EU accession. "The two main political blocs are so far away and polarization is so immense that I don't see that there is even the slightest will to come to an agreement on couple of strategic matters mainly due to the behavior of the opposition," Pendarovski states adding not even a leaders' meeting initiated by his office could help. On the relations with Turkey, President Pendarovski notes that they are at exceptionally high level adding the country since the declaration of its independence has been fully supported by Ankara, which also helps Skopje in its process to join international organizations as well as economically by opening a lot of investments.