VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristiyan Mickoski will be sworn in as Prime Minister of North Macedonia. He will comply with the Constitution and pronounce the full name of the country as written there. He stated this in an interview with "Sitel", quoted by MKD.
"The constitutional name of the state is clear and we should not apply double standards in order not to feel irresponsible to the citizens or to mislead them. It is known what the constitutional name is - it is with the adjective "North". I want to close this topic", said Hristiyan Mickoski.
He assured that he will use the new constitutional name of the state during visits abroad.
"In everyday life and in speeches in the country, however, I will use the name Macedonia.", said Mickoski.
We remind you that on June 6, Mickoski received a mandate to form a government from the President of North Macedonia, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova. Mickoski had 20 days to complete the task.
The coalition, led by Mickoski's VMRO-DPMNE party, won just over 43% of the vote in the May 8 election, securing 58 of the 120 seats in parliament, three short of the number needed to govern on its own .
In the presidential runoff held on the same day, the candidate supported by VMRO-DPMNE, 70-year-old law professor Gordana Silyanovska-Davkova, became the first woman elected head of state of the RSM.
After weeks of negotiations, Mickoski announced an initial agreement on a coalition government with the ethnic Albanian party Vredi, which has 14 MPs, and the small leftist ZNAM, which has six.
The country's new parliament was convened on May 28 and elected Afrim Gashi from the Vredi party as its speaker.
The oath of President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova was worthy, I expected congratulations from the southern neighbor for the convincing triumph, but unfortunately we got a demonstration of political "muscles". Mickoski stated this in May.
He called for good-neighborly and friendly relations with Greece and insisted that there be no more threats and a return to the past, and that both countries look to the future. He also said that he expects a meeting with the Greek Prime Minister soon, with whom he will discuss the economy, tourism, education and other issues.
According to Mickoski, if Greece believes that the country has violated the Prespa Agreement, it should turn to the International Court of Justice.
He also recalled that the country fulfilled the Agreement in its entirety, and the three main tasks were not fulfilled in the case of the southern neighbor.
"If anyone expects VMRO-DPMNE to repeat the mistakes of the past, be sure that we will not do it. We have no intention of responding to their political muscle by renaming highways and airports or building monuments. I do not expect relations between the two countries to be based on political muscle, I expect to have excellent neighborly relations, I appreciate that VMRO-DPMNE and the local government led by "New Democracy" have their own position related to the Prespa Agreement, because . neither one nor the other likes this contract," Mickoski pointed out. In contrast, he emphasized, the Treaty of Prespa is part of the Macedonian institutions, the Macedonian constitution and laws.
The Prime Minister of Greece reiterated his intention to thwart North Macedonia's bid to join the EU.
This decision was reached after the new president of the RSM called the country "Macedonia", renewing the dispute with Athens over the name.
Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova - who won the support of a resurgent nationalist party in last week's vote - mentioned Macedonia's former name during her inauguration on Sunday. In this way, it violated the agreement between Athens and Skopje, reached with the mediation of the UN.
The two countries agreed that Greece's small Balkan neighbor would be called "Northern Macedonia" after long and contentious negotiations in 2018, not just "Macedonia", which Athens says implies territorial claims to a Greek region of the same name.