The constitutional amendments are just an excuse for you not to implement the necessary reforms, Dirk Jan Kop, Holland Ambassador to Macedonia, sharply rebuked the Macedonian authorities in an interview with the Macedonian Television.

“You are too focused on the constitutional amendments. We in Holland don’t care about the amendments, we are interested in real reforms. Justifying it with the necessity to start the second phase of the EU negotiations is also false, since you can implement the reforms without starting the second phase – it is a bit more complicated, but not impossible – and when you meet all the necessary criteria, then you can make the amendments, since you will have to amend the Constitution to join the EU”, Kop stresses.

He disagrees with the argument that Macedonia is waiting to start the negotiations for too long, constantly receiving new conditions. 

“No, the EU is waiting for Macedonia for too long. The necessary reforms could have been implemented 10-15 years ago, and they weren’t. It is unfounded to talk about Euroscepticism in that manner, even offensive for us, because after 20-30 years of support for your EU integrations, where are the billions  of euros invested by EU in your country, what happened to the trainings we paid for? Why all new rules and regulatives are not correctly implemented? Is it an issue of mentality? Perhaps you remember, our taxpayers paid for the Covid-19 vaccines for the entire West Balkan. Few months ago, the European Commission gave thee Macedonian Government additional €200 million to deal with the high energy prices and the inflation, despite our own taxpayers facing the same problems at the time”, Ambassador Kop said.

Responding to a question if the present Euroscepticism may lead to increased influence by non-Western countries, Ambassador Kop said:

“The problem with non-Western influence is not your priority. The real problem is that people don’t trust the institutions. The trust in institutions is ten times smaller than the trust in the EU. People complain on the  courts, the prosecution, the police… We receive letters nd messages from local people, of course, we can’t do anything, but we are neither blind, nor deaf”, the Holland Ambassador Dirk Jan Kkop concluded.