Skopje, 10 June 2025 (MIA) — Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said Tuesday that most members of European Parliament approved of the EP's rapporteur Thomas Waitz's draft report on North Macedonia's progress on the EU path, the vote on which has been rescheduled for June 24. According to Mickoski, if the report is not adopted then either, the reason the country's EU accession path remains blocked is the Macedonian language and identity.

On June 4, when EP's Committee on Foreign Affairs was set to vote on the report on the country's alignment with the EU, Waitz proposed the vote be postponed after Bulgarian MEPs objected to amendments related to the Macedonian language and identity.

"Most of the MEPs, those who truly advocate for European values, decided to give the process a chance and put it to a vote again on June 24," Mickoski said. "If it does not pass, if it is postponed again, Macedonian citizens need to be aware that the problem is not the introduction into the Preamble of the few hundred citizens who are part of the Bulgarian community in our country but our distinct, centuries-old Macedonian identity and Macedonian language."

"That is the problem. All else has no relation to reality," Mickoski said in response to a reporter's question on the report. He also said that what the previous government had described as "a formality," the Bulgarian MEPs had shown was anything but, highlighting as problematic the references of the distinct Macedonian identity and distinct Macedonian language.

Saying he stood behind the report he had drafted based on negotiations and compromise between all European parliamentary groups, Waitz asked for the postponement to allow for the intense political debate among Bulgarian MEPs regarding the amendments on the Macedonian language and identity.

The EP rapporteur has been accused of drafting a one-sided report after meeting with Macedonian politicians but not Bulgarian ones and of being overly close with the EU candidate country. In a letter signed by 17 Bulgarian MEPs, the Austrian Greens lawmaker was denounced for allegedly ignoring violence against the Bulgarian minority in the country and for being unduly influenced by Macedonian officials. 

Waitz told Politico that it was standard policy to meet with representatives of the country one was reporting on. He also showed Politico several threatening messages he had received after his phone number was leaked on Bulgarian extreme-right social media accounts. Waitz said the "smear campaigns, fake accusations of being corrupt, fake accusations of being biased" started after he had pushed back when Bulgarian MEPs attempted to water down the EU Parliament’s recognition of a distinct Macedonian identity.

Commenting on the allegations against Waitz, Mickoski said he had not had a face-to-face meeting with the rapporteur but as part of a group of MEPs, including two Bulgarians. Still, he added, "it is our legitimate right as a government to go out into the world and put forward our arguments" concerning the Macedonian language and identity.

"The SDSM and DUI government kept telling us that this was not a problem," Mickoski said. "But we saw that for some MEPs, for those from the East especially, this was indeed a problem. What was their problem? The Macedonian identity and language." mr/