Discussions are ongoing in bilateral and EU formats regarding the Entry/Exit System (EES) and solutions are sought for the summer period. Reports on the exemption of certain states are fake news, Macedonian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Timcho Mucunski said Monday.
“What I could inform the public is that we are in talks with the EU institutions and the member states, so that in the summer period, when the biggest crowds occur, there will be some kind of system through which there will be relief. At the moment, since nothing has been officially confirmed to us, unfortunately, I cannot officially confirm anything either, but we expect as a region, cooperating with the member states, who themselves do not want such crowds, to have better conditions than those that existed in the recent period,” said Mucunski at the Parliament’s Q&A session, in response to a question from opposition SDSM MP SanjaLukarevskaregarding the postponement of the EES system for Macedonia.
FM Mucunski said that during the previous week he was at a meeting of the foreign ministers of the EU member states with the Western Balkan countries, during which he personally raised this issue.
“I also attended a meeting of the foreign ministers in the format “Friends of the Western Balkans” in Bratislava. I was personally the first minister from the region to raise this issue. I also have bilateral talks with the countries of the region. As an example, Interior Minister Toshkovski was also in Greece a few weeks ago, where we talked and discussed how to find a collective solution for the entire region. Why do I say collectively? Because the news that came out that the citizens of Serbia are excluded from the EES is fake news, incorrect information. It is true that it appeared in several media outlets, but the next day I called that information a political show, because it is absolutely incorrect,” said Mucunski.
The FM added that according to EU rules, such an individual exception cannot be made, and secondly, if one looks at the conditions at the border crossings, such a decision cannot be implemented. Mucunski adds that when a crowd is created, one lane with a column only for citizens of a certain country cannot be enforced.
