Macedonian Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, who delivered a lecture at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore on Monday, discussed the country’s start of the EU accession negotiations and noted there is no guarantee that Bulgaria has issued its last demand.
“We will not be able to be ready to start negotiations if we do not include several hundred of our citizens in the Constitution, which means that they are part of the Bulgarian minority in Macedonia. Who can guarantee us that this is the last request? In the European Court of Human Rights, we have 14 verdicts that say that the rights of the Macedonian community in Bulgaria have been violated. And here a logical question arises, whose rights are violated,” Mickoski said.
Speaking about Bulgaria’s veto, the PM stresses that real good neighborly relations should be discussed, but they should be two-way. Macedonian citizens, said Mickoski, sacrificed too much for the European perspective and enough with humiliation.
“We are not politicians full of allegations of crime and corruption as there are in the region. We will protect our interests, we are ready to discuss arguments, present them, see whose arguments will prevail. Macedonian citizens have contributed to the European perspective like no one before,” noted Prime Minister Mickoski.
