Portugal will try to organize the first intergovernmental conferences with Macedonia and Albania in the first half of 2021, said Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva, whose country took over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU on January 1.

After Bulgaria’s blockade, Portugal came out with optimistic views on the country’s European perspective. Silva stressed that the opening of accession talks with Skopje and Tirana is among the priorities of the Portugal’s EU Presidency.

He pointed out that the EU has so far delivered many requests to Macedonia. The country had to carry out a number of very important reforms and even change its name.

They did their job. Now is the time for us to do our job, said Santos Silva.

He announced that the Portuguese presidency through talks with both sides will seek to overcome the misunderstandings between Sofia and Skopje.

Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Nikola Dimitrov, in an interview with MIA, also said that although Portugal is not geographically near, it will be interested in resuming Germany’s efforts.

I believe Portugal will be interested in resuming Germany’s efforts as Berlin has announced it will remain committed to the issue. I think the EU cannot afford 2021 to be like 2020 with enlargement failure. We make a mistake calling it enlargement, it’s in fact completion. Once the region becomes part of the EU, its map won’t become bigger, it’s going to stay the same. Hence, I believe completion is the more appropriate word, underlined Dimitrov.

He says that Portugal had used the process to join the EU with the same motivation that has been inspiring us to join the process – the country has improved democracy, provided economic growth, etc. In this regard, I believe the country will have understanding about our issue, he said.

It’s our job to keep working, we have positions based on clear, crystal clear European principles and I think it’s very important that we focus on sorting things at home, Dimitrov stressed.

He says that this is not only a battle for the Macedonian identity, it is a battle, too, for the European identity. If the EU is a community of values, with diversity, both cultural and linguistic, being one of the key values, then the battle is also a battle of the EU itself.

I’m convinced that we have to fulfill these three goals simultaneously – to start negotiating, to protect and promote the Macedonian identity and Macedonian language, and to build relations of good neighborliness with Bulgaria, he said.

According to him, the accession process is a tool for Europeanization. But, no one is stopping us from working on Europeanization since we have not been approved to start the accession process.

The more we work at home, the more our position will be stronger when we’ll be approved to start negotiating with the EU, he emphasized.