French Ambassador Cyrille Baumgartner in an interview with TV Alsat’s “360 Degree” show said that it can be expected French President Emmanuel Macron to take steps to facilitate the Sofia-Skopje dialogue, to take the initiative to move things forward.

In the interview, he did not talk about what specific moves are in question, but stressed that the start of negotiations between the EU and Macedonia is something that everyone wants.

I think your next question will be – what exactly is it about, but I would remain discreet, because the most important thing is to be efficient, to have activities that will allow the process to be unblocked and to achieve the result that everyone wants today, and that is resolving the situation as soon as possible to start EU accession negotiations. This means that we are not in a phase of public communication, but in a phase of mobilization, and to increase the chances of success sometimes we need to be very discreet, because the most important thing is to be convincing and have a rational approach that will eventually bring the desired result, says Baumgartner.

Regarding the language, he stressed that Macedonian is spoken in Macedonia and that he has no dilemmas about it.

No one will be able to force the two countries to adopt something that does not suit them and that will require moving away from the red lines. Within those parameters, progress should be made, a solution should be found, and once that is achieved, we will have to agree on a Negotiating Framework, which will enable the opening of accession negotiations, without delay, Baumgartner said.