English
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski announced that the VMRO-DPMNE representatives in local municipalities will draft a guarantee that they will not allow the opening of migrant camps. The move comes after several speculative news articles in the British press, which claimed that the British Government is in talks with Macedonia about hosting refused asylum seekers. VMRO-DPMNE and its coalition partners have majority in an overwhelming number of municipalities across Macedonia.
The VMRO-DPMNE municipal council members will submit to their councils a document that will affirm our policies against illegal migration and that the territories of these municipalities will not be used to open migrant camps. We will also call on the relevant authorities to begin a procedure under the criminal code against all who sow fear and panic, even after the clearly stated denials on the part of the Government, said Mickoski, who has already strongly denied the reports in the UK press.
SDSM leader Venko Filipce held a press conference in which he declared the UK press speculations as fact and was warning the public about the crime and disease threats that the migrants would carry. The Prime Minister noted that this is an issue that SDSM is especially weak on, as the party supported the open flow of migrants through Macedonia in the past and pushed for the opening of a migrant camp near Skopje. “Being anti illegal migration is a foundational position of VMRO-DPMNE and in the past we were being accused of xenophobia over it. Now we face completely opposite attacks from SDSM. The truth is simple – nothing like that will ever happen, there are no plans for it, and the only official UK source on the issue is the British Embassy in our country”, Mickoski added.
The Prime Minister said that SDSM is facing deep internal issues, as Filipce has difficulties putting together the key institutions of the party after the mass resignations that followed the local election drubbing, so is now trying to shift hte topic. Sill, Mickoski called on the state prosecutors to investigate SDSM and DUI for spreading panic in the public, which is a violation of the criminal code.
