English
President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova received a delegation from the Senate of the French Republic, led by Marta de Cidrac, Chair of the France–Western Balkans Friendship Group. The delegation included Senators Arnaud Bazin, Alain Milon, and Laurence Harribey, advisor Guillaume Rendino, and the French Ambassador to the country, Christophe Le Rigoleur.
According to her Office, the President welcomed the visit of the French senators and the active engagement of the parliamentary friendship group in supporting the region on its path toward the EU. She emphasized the importance of continuous political dialogue and parliamentary cooperation, in the spirit of the principles and values enshrined in the founding acts. Siljanovska-Davkova pointed to the unnaturally and illogically long Macedonian journey to Brussels—a path that, instead of going via Copenhagen, wound through the capitals of neighboring EU member states, facing obstacles and conditions related to identity rather than reform, her Office reported. She recalled that as early as 1992, the Badinter Commission gave a positive assessment regarding the conformity of our constitution with the European Convention on Human Rights and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities; furthermore, in 2022, the Venice Commission—in its opinion on the Law on the Use of Languages—noted that the standards of minority rights protection here exceeded European standards.
According to Siljanovska-Davkova, this highlights the Macedonian European integration paradox: after a decade of positive annual reports regarding respect for community rights, the 2023 report by Bulgarian MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk—based on the second protocol of the Macedonian-Bulgarian Joint Commission on Historical and Educational Issues, signed by Minister Osmani and Minister Genchovska—noted for the first time the need to include Bulgarians in our constitution, despite the fact that the Treaty of Friendship and Good-Neighborliness with Bulgaria contains no such provision.