English
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski welcomed the decision of the European Union to clear over 65 million EUR for projects in Macedonia following the successful completion of the associated reforms and said that this disperses claims from the opposition SDSM party that the Government is lagging in the reforms.
I just want to warn the Macedonian citizens that it seems that the atmosphere in the opposition is very peculiar. And as a result of that atmosphere, sometimes we have different views on the same issue during the same day, and sometimes even they themselves are brought to a situation where they deny each other during the day. But what is the truth and what are the facts? The facts are that, we said that from the last place in the Western Balkans Six group, we are going to be the first. We started working hard, immediately after the local elections, and already in the January report we are the first. Now the June report is coming and we have intensive communication with Gert Jan Koopman. We are working on all portfolios within the Government and I expect to confirm this position now after the June report and from these thirty, thirty-one million EUR that are coming in direct budget support, we will get closer to the figure of 100 million. And with the financing and funds foreseen for various projects, that figure will be several hundred million euros, said Mickoski.
The Prime Minister said that the opposition seemingly hopes for failure of the country but that the news for them are bad. Mickoski pointed to the remarks from European Parliament rapporteur for Macedonia Thomas Waitz, which the opposition is now ignoring after an attempt to have them misinterpreted through Bulgarian outlets. “We also do not see the wave of migrants that the opposition was saying will come as result of our agreement with the United Kingdom. You remember that last year they had a campaign insisting that we are going bankrupt, and now we are among the first three or the first five economies in Europe in terms of growth. The Government continues to deliver, and they continue to promote policies of self-debasement”, said Mickoski