We’re doing everything we can for Bulgaria to lift the veto on North Macedonia’s opening of negotiations with the EU and I insist that June is the optimal chance for that to happen even though Bulgaria has an interim government, Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani told Thursday’s news conference after promoting the Strategic Council for Foreign Policy.
Even though Bulgaria has caretaker government tasked with organizing elections, he stated, it is a decision-making cabinet nevertheless.
“That’s why we send a request for a meeting, to hold a meeting of the intergovernmental commission, to adapt the action plan all the while we’re working with our friends and supporters to unblock the process,” Osmani said.
The country, he stressed, has been making efforts to restore trust with Bulgaria firmly believing that the only way to return the countries’ relations to normal is through the Friendship Treaty.
“We could get back to the Agreement by holding the first intergovernmental conference to report on what has been implemented so far and to draft an action plan of what needs to be implemented in the coming period,” Osmani said adding the Ministry has been intent on making it happen in the next six months.
EU enlargement policies are reached with consensus, according to him.
“These are the rules of the European Union like it or not,” Osmani said, adding that negotiations couldn’t be opened if only one country didn’t approve the negotiating framework and the opening of negotiations.
It’s our responsibility to meet the criteria, Osmani said stating the European Commission has confirmed the country had met the conditions allowing it to start negotiating. “In some aspects, we are ever far ahead than the countries already in negotiations, which is why we shouldn’t miss the chance to start negotiations in June,” he told the news conference.
Portugal, according to the Minister, has been actively engaged in the EU enlargement process, which have proven skeptics wrong that enlargement won’t be one of the priorities of the Portuguese EU presidency.
Osmani confirmed that European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi and Portugal’s Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva will visit Skopje and Sofia on Friday.
It is expected Varhelyi and Santos to table a proposal for the unblocking of the Bulgaria veto to North Macedonia, which prevents the formal approval of the first IGC. If EU member-states reach an agreement by June 22 and provided North Macedonia approves the negotiating framework, the IGC could take place between June 22-30.
PM Zoran Zaev said yesterday that the visit was planned ahead of the EU General Affairs Council on June 22, when a decision is to be taken on the adoption of the negotiating framework and the first intergovernmental conference (IGC) with North Macedonia, thus formally launching the accession negotiations
