Skopje, 2 December 2025 (MIA) - Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski says he fully endorses the implementation of the Safe City project, as well as its expansion across the country, adding that he is ready to withstand any criticism and political blows if the system saves even a single human life.

"Some say that it will draw criticism to the Government, or that it will give a strong political blow. I say that we are ready to withstand such political blow, just to save a human life. Because only in the past week or two, in the very heart of the capital, we have had three victims, injured people and people who lost their lives due to speeding or disregard for traffic rules," Mickoski told reporters after Tuesday's cornerstone laying ceremony for a new kindergarten in Gjorche Petrov Municipality. 

He noted that talks with the Interior Minister have concluded that the Government is ready to ride out any criticism. 

"I hear some of the former MPs of the former SDSM and DUI ruling majority criticize this, after they had received text messages for driving at 52, 53, 55 km/h. Even at 50.5 km/h they will receive a text message of a traffic violation, because there are speeding rules in place. And if we manage to save even a single human life, I am ready to take the entire burden and take full political responsibility. Some of those human lives are lost due to disrespect for traffic rules, and most often this happens due to speeding violations," said the PM. 

He pointed out that as the Safe City trial period began on Monday, it showed that many traffic violations were committed in just one day.

"A large part of them were because negligent drivers were driving passenger vehicles that were not registered. Some of yesterday's violations - several thousand of them, involved drivers running a red light. Just take a look back and see how many people have lost their lives because a driver was speeding and ran a red light. I reiterate, if we have to withstand political pressure and a political blow for this, I am ready to take full responsibility, just to save a human life," said Mickoski.

The Ministry of Interior said that in the first 12 hours of the Safe City trial period alone, 65,000 traffic violations were registered, of which 2,800 involved running a red light and 1,000 driving an unregistered vehicle.