English
The governments of Macedonia and Hungary held a joint conference in Budapest today, to further deepen the political and economic cooperation of the two countries. During the joint press conference with his host, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski discussed Macedonia’s blocked EU accession.
Our strategic goal, as a country, has long been to become part of the European family – something we have earned long ago. But we must also point out that what the Macedonian citizens gave to achieve this strategic goal, toward which we haven’t moved at all in the past 20 years, was priceless. The price was so high, its incalculable. We have bilateralization of the negotiation process, instead of its Europeanization. I hope that this process will finally be unblocked for us, with significant the help from our friend Hungary, and that we as a country will begin the accesion talks. I’m certain that, if we are allowed to open the accession talks in accordance with the true Copenhagen criteria, we will be able to complete them very quickly and to become part of the EU, Mickoski said, adding that Prime Minister Orban has proven to be a “man of his word, whose words can move mountains, and who has my deepest respect”.
Prime Minister Orban responded by saying that it is shameful that Macedonia has not been able to move forward toward the EU faster, and that the blame is not with Macedonia, but with the EU member states.
The EU must be more competitive in the world and I see no other solution to achieve this than to continue to process of enlargement. Every enlargement brought good to the European Union, Prime Minister Orban said, adding that Macedonia, Hungary and Serbia belong to the same economic region, and that it should be organized as a united economic area.
Prime Minister Mickoski thanked Prime Minister Orban for all the help that Hungary has extended to Macedonia, including the bilateral loan of a billion EUR. “These funds are being used to build roads, schools, kindergartens, to modernize our country. During our meeting we also discussed even deeper bilateral cooperation in the area of infrastructure, as well as in defense cooperation, such as developing ties between the military industries of the two countries”.
Regarding the burning issue of the war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Orban said that Hungary does not belong to the meeting of some European leaders with Zelensky in London because this meeting was to prolong the war, and Hungary strives for peace. “For us, any continuation of the war is bad, dangerous and a mistake. Macedonia and Hungary had the same point of view in the United Nations and we supported the American proposal that was accepted at the Security Council”.
