Croatia remains ready to help Macedonia on its way to the European Union. In the past 20 years, there have been many injustices towards Macedonia and the time has come when all of that should be respected, said Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic after meeting with his Macedonian colleague Hristijan Mickoski, who is on his first official visit to Croatia.
At the press conference held after the tete a tete meeting in the government building in Zagreb, Plenkovic said that Croatia will advocate for a more dynamic process of Macedonia’s accession to the European Union.
The topic that burdens Macedonia’s European path is, in our opinion, unfair to the Macedonian people, the Macedonian identity. I think that so many concessions have been made by the Macedonian side that hardly any nation and state would accept to take so many steps on their part in order to speed up their path to membership in the European Union, Plenkovic said, adding that the negotiations for accession of Macedonia to the EU to start as soon as possible.
Prime Minister Mickoski said that the injustice that has been inflicted on us in the past two and a half decades is great and that we have made concessions like no other, starting from the temporary reference to the name of the state, through changing the flag and banknotes, to changing the name of the state to Prespa agreement.
We have many internal problems and we will solve them and there should be no dilemma here, we will work as necessary. The fact that it does not depend on us is exactly the beginning of negotiations. Unfortunately, that also depends on others. We have done enough, now we need someone to open the door for us so that we can enter that room to start negotiating and show how much we can do, Mickoski pointed out.
At the press conference, he said that we are still in a vortex that has no certain end, although the desire of Macedonian citizens to be part of the European Union family is great.
He expressed his conviction that the values that many decades ago Schumann, Adenauer and De Gasperi defined as European values, will be shared by European citizens and politicians in the future and that “we will not be victims of bilateral disputes on our way to full integration within the European Union”.
The two Prime Ministers also discussed the promotion of bilateral cooperation at all levels, especially on the economic level, given that there are opportunities for improvement, even though the annual trade is now 300 million dollars.
He expressed his conviction that the values that many decades ago Schumann, Adenauer and De Gasperi defined as European values, will be shared by European citizens and politicians in the future and that “we will not be victims of bilateral disputes on our way to full integration within the European Union”.
The two Prime Ministers also discussed the promotion of bilateral cooperation at all levels, especially on the economic level, given that there are opportunities for improvement, even though the annual trade is now 300 million dollars.
During the first bilateral visit of Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski to Croatia, bilateral agreements were signed today in Zagreb between the Ministries of Education and Science and the Ministry of Health, which, as it was pointed out at the press conference, will significantly improve relations between the two countries.
I want to thank my dear friend, the Prime Minister of the Croatian Government, Mr. Andrej Plenkovich, for the hospitality, for the nice conversation, for the wonderful atmosphere that we have here in Zagreb. And I am convinced that the fraternal relations between the Macedonian and Croatian citizens will be at an extremely high level in the future, and we as two governments will continue to work to increase the cooperation between the citizens of the two countries, said Mickoski.
Prime Minister Mickoski’s meeting with Croatian President Zoran Milanović is underway, and in the afternoon, according to the agenda, the Prime Minister will visit the church “St. Zlata Meglenska” where he will have a meeting with representatives of the Macedonian diaspora.
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