English
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski addressed today the dispute in the European Parliament over the progress report on Macedonia – that was supposed to contain language affirming Macedonia’s national identity and language. This caused outrage among the Bulgarian representatives, who delayed its adoption. According to the Prime Minister, this shows that Bulgaria’s intentions go deeper than just adding the Bulgarian minority in the Macedonian Constitution – which is their formal demand for the opening of the EU accession talks.
Most of the members of the European Parliament – at least those who truly represent European values – decided to give another chance to the process, and the report will be at the AFET committee again on June 24th. If it is not accepted, if the discussion is postponed again, then the Macedonian citizens will know that the problem is not adding the few hundred of our citizens who are part of the Bulgarian community to the Preamble of our Constitution, but that the problem is the unique, centuries old Macedonian identity and Macedonian language. That is the essence of the problem, Mickoski said.
Prime Minister Mickoski added that the Bulgarian representatives are trying to insert the term “present” in front of the mentions of the Macedonian national identity and language, while claiming that they are both originally Bulgarian. “We were assured that the mention of the Macedonian identity and language are a formality, at least that is what we were told by the SDSM – DUI Government, but now w see that for some members of the European Parliament that is a problem”, Mickoski added. He insisted that he only met once with the EP’s rapporteur, Austrian representative Thomas Waitz, after the Bulgarian representatives resorted to accusing Waitz of corruption and of having too many meetings with Macedonian representatives.
It is our legitimate right to fight for our arguments. We fight like lions everywhere in the world, in Washington, Brussels, London, Berlin.. to restore our positions that were lost and sold out by the previous Government in its push to cling to power. It is our right and we will continue to fight. We are few in numbers, but we have heart and we will fight, Mickoski said.
Bulgarian officials were lobbying EU authorities to postpone the issue, and were warning that it could cause anger in Bulgaria and possibly scuttle the attempt to have the country adopt the euro as its currency, Mickoski added.
