Mickoski denies North Macedonia will be left without an EU roadmap

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski rejected claims that North Macedonia will be excluded from a new European Union roadmap and said he has no information to that effect. He announced he will raise the matter with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during her visit on Friday.

"I would not like to comment on a media report. Given that we delivered most of the reforms that are part of the Reform Agenda and the Growth Plan already in two reporting periods, and if EU accession is a process that is assessed on merit, for me this is illogical. Therefore we must see whether it is so or not, and my information says that it is not so," Mickoski said.

According to media reports, the European Commission is preparing a new plan with concrete timelines and dates for finishing accession negotiations that would initially apply only to four countries: Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova. Mickoski said he finds it unreasonable that North Macedonia would be left out of such an instrument and wants to establish the facts before drawing conclusions.

Regional politics and the EU debate

Mickoski said developments in the region and inside the EU shape the country's approach: the failed referendum in Iceland on restarting negotiations, successes by political forces in German federal states that are anti-immigration and oppose enlargement, and next spring's presidential election in France, where he expects the right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen to prevail. He also signalled he would seek a more objective briefing on the talks with Bulgaria.

The opposition dismissed the prime minister's statements as insincere. "All this he says, that some representative is needed, is a lie. Simply, the man has no intention to continue the country's European plan. Von der Leyen in 2022 made a concrete proposal, but then VMRO-DPMNE jeered her with vuvuzelas. The path forward is clear; if this chance is not used, who knows when we will have a second chance," Venko Filipche, president of SDSM, said.

The government has stuck to its position on membership criteria. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for European Affairs Bekim Sali, who attended the Western Balkans Conference in Vienna, called for a fair and predictable enlargement process and for assessment based on objective European criteria and the actual progress made by candidate countries.

Photo: press material from the event