The bilateral meetings held so far between North Macedonia and Bulgaria have been merely ‘for the sake of having a meeting’, whereas the European Union needs to be involved in the process to hear the arguments from both sides, said Macedonian Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski in an interview with the national broadcaster MRT, responding to a question about how he interprets official Sofia’s stance: while Sofia is open to dialogue, it insists that talks remain bilateral rather than involving EU mediation.
“The bilateral meetings held so far, whether by the President or the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, are what I call meetings held merely for the sake of it. And after these meetings conclude, the subsequent briefings always present a version of events completely different from what was actually discussed. Our idea behind involving the European Union is to ensure that both our arguments and the other side’s arguments are heard. I understand official Sofia’s concern. They argue: ‘If we sit down with a third party present, it implies that we truly have a bilateral dispute.’ And the fact is, we *do* have a bilateral dispute.We can make things up or pretend otherwise, but in reality, we do have a bilateral dispute that is currently in its initial stage,” PM Mickoski underlined.
The Macedonian PM points out that the Government’s position is that it cannot embark on an uncertain venture without knowing the outcome of the EU integration path.