English
During his visit to Brussels, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski met with European Council President Antonio Costa, where he discussed the stalled EU integration of Macedonia.
During the meeting, we reiterated our unified positions, positions that are truly dignified, after all the humiliations that we have endured in the past, in the preceding 25 years since our path toward the EU began, Mickoski said.
The Prime Minister added that other priorities he raised in Brussels are completing the gas interconnection line with Serbia and with Kosovo.
Mickoski also attended an Euronews conference dedicated to the EU enlargement. In his remarks, the Prime Minister said that Macedonia is stalled in its progress not because of failures to meet the objective Copenhagen criteria, but because of “artificial disputes, regarding our national flag, national name, the name of the country, changes to the Constitution..”.
Despite all these obstacles, we still believe that our future is in the European Union. We are part of the European continent, and we believe that integration of the Western Balkans in the EU is an added value to the EU itself, a form of reunification of the European continent. I think that the future of my country and the future of my people, the Macedonians, is in the European Union. Therefore, despite all these humiliations and disappointments and the current frustration of our citizens, we still share the same values, Mickoski added.
The Prime Minister warned that, if the EU allows this practice of frivolous slapping of vetoes by member states, it could be abused in other cases as well. “The EU should ask itself what it’s doing with the unanimity decision making, and whether it is in accordance with the principles it is built on. I am not surprised and this will likely happen again and again in the future, because apparently it works. Two and a half decades ago we began this path, and we are still in the same place. Because someone is abusing this tool”, the Prime Minister said.
