VMRO-DPMNE Vice President Aleksandar Nikoloski said in Thursday’s interview with TV Tera’s “Direktno” that they were satisfied with the meeting with EU Commissioner for Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi.

We are very pleased with the meeting. We expect positive impulses in the coming period. It is an extremely dedicated commissioner who has been ambitious in all this work from the beginning. Two paths are needed in parallel, one is a change in the methodology for membership, the other intensive reforms. If changing the methodology is a matter that does not depend on Macedonia, the reforms absolutely depend. Unfortunately, Zaev failed these two years to deliver reforms, Nikoloski says.

VMRO-DPMNE is ready to deliver reforms, Nikoloski emphasized, adding that VMRO-DPMNE’s goal is a strong commitment to reforms.

We believe that 2020 may be a successful year, not a lost one, to deliver on the rule of law and fight against corruption, this is a fundamental requirement for both the EU and the citizens, and in cooperation with the new EU Commissioner for Enlargement Várhelyi to work for Macedonia to get a date for negotiations and start the negotiations and finish them quickly. Our initial goal would be to open and close all chapters within a year and then to work on implementation, Vice President Nikoloski added.

He said that Olivér Várhelyi comes from VMRO-DPMNE’s sister party, the ruling Fidesz party in Hungary, with which they have excellent relations as well as with the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and added that at the moment VMRO-DPMNE might be the strongest driving force of Macedonia’s EU integration because neither Macedonia nor any other political party had such high-level friend before and that that momentum should be used.