The proposal by Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva and EU Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi shows that the EU is making a visible effort regarding Macedonia and unblocking its EU integration, Defence Minister Radmila Shekerinska said in an interview with Kanal 5 TV on Friday evening.

During the interview, Sekerinska said that two good things could be identified – that the EU was actively engaged and that the principle of identity issues not being part of the negotiating framework would be respected.

According to her, it is positive that things are moving, because it would be bad to have a status quo and for our country and the EU to get used to it. She said that despite low expectations, it turned out that the Portuguese EU presidency was still focused on the Balkans and enlargement.

Sekerinska pointed out that the support for the start of negotiations was shown by the fact that the majority of 26 countries in the EU are in favor of opening the negotiation process with Macedonia, and on the other hand only Bulgaria is against.

Regarding the reactions in Sofia, Sekerinska said that what she could see from the media reports was that Bulgaria was not satisfied with the proposal of Silva and Várhelyi.