In an interview with the Greek newspaper Etnos, President Stevo Pendarovski indicates that Russia produces extremely serious hybrid threats to the entire Balkan region, especially political propaganda and a campaign of disinformation.

In Macedonia, their complexity and intensity are the same as those in 2018, during the referendum after the Prespa Agreement. I don’t have complete knowledge about the rest of the countries, but the several weak points in the region are well known to Moscow and it is certainly trying to penetrate, says Pendarovski.

Regarding the French proposal, President Pendarovski repeated that for him it is a sort of transitional compromise with a roadblock inserted along the way.

After 17 years in the waiting room, we would finally start accession negotiations and that is the biggest benefit of it. However, after the screening process, there is one prerequisite for the continuation of the negotiations, and that is the amendment with which the Bulgarians should be included into the Macedonian Constitution. Considering the current political division, the chances are very low that any political party could secure a two-thirds majority in the parliament that would support that constitutional amendment, said the head of state.