Yesterday's vote on the progress report of the Republic of North Macedonia in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament was assessed by the country's Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski not as a "small victory", but as a "big disappointment", BTA reported.
"Because yesterday we witnessed how in the capital of Europe, Brussels, there was an attempt by certain European parliamentarians to create a new nation and a new language, in the 21st century, in Europe. What they themselves accuse Russia of doing to Ukraine by denying the identity and language of Ukrainians, yesterday certain European parliamentarians tried to do to this small Macedonian people. To create a modern Macedonian nation that uses a modern Macedonian language”, said Mickoski in response to a journalistic question after a visit to the University Clinic of Pediatrics in Skopje.
According to him, what makes him happy is that citizens have managed to see that neither the identity nor the language "are concrete", as "certain fraudsters in politics", whether from North Macedonia or from other countries, have been convincing people in North Macedonia for the past three years.
„Everything we said from the very beginning was confirmed yesterday in a few minutes. The problem is not the inclusion of Bulgarians in the constitution, the problem is something else, namely the Macedonian identity and the Macedonian mother tongue. This is the essence of the problem”, Mickoski reiterated his thesis.
According to the Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia, what the state expects from Bulgaria is only to respect the facts and the Resolution for the Protection of Human Rights, which it has signed.
„What does this mean? All the judgments coming from Strasbourg, which relate to the protection of human rights, of the Macedonian community in Bulgaria, the recognition of the OMO „Ilinden Pirin“ (...), the permission of the OMO „Ilinden Pirin“ to function as a legal entity and Macedonian representative in the Council of Ministers for Minority Rights. That is. If the other minorities in Bulgaria deserved a place there, then the minority, which according to the 1956 census is the largest minority with 200,000 registered citizens in what was then Western Bulgaria”, announced Mickoski.
He defined as "statements for internal use" the letter to the heads of the European institutions and EU member states on the occasion of the adopted draft report by the EP Foreign Affairs Committee on the progress of North Macedonia by Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, as well as the words of GERB Chairman Boyko Borissov on yesterday's decision of the EP Foreign Affairs Committee that the amendments to the report on the Republic of North Macedonia will be proposed by the European People's Party (EPP) at the EP session.
Mitzkoski once again stated that North Macedonia will fight to prevent the amendments from being adopted.
„If the majority of MEPs agree, I assume that this amendment (before the wording Macedonian nation and language to be added "modern") can pass - what they predict. But the important thing is that you saw. Europe saw how hypocritical some politicians are. Europe saw how these politicians say one thing and then another about the same thing. I fear that some of these politicians will be equated with Russian politics and what Russian politics is doing in Ukraine, that is, an attempt to prevent the integration of this, I would say, small country, within the EU,” said Mickoski.
According to him, if North Macedonia starts negotiations with the EU, within 3-4 years these negotiations will be completed, “but as Macedonians, with Macedonian identity, Macedonian language, and not as changed modern Macedonians, with modern Macedonian identity and modern Macedonian language.”