The government sees no need for a meeting with VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski over the differences with Bulgaria. VMRO-DPMNE, on the other hand, has said PM Zoran Zaev would have agreed to a leaders’ meeting to discuss all the open issues if it mattered to him the country to move forward.

“I don’t see a need for a leaders’ meeting. Especially not with a man who hasn’t had a position on any important national or strategic issue. Mickoski is against an agreement on any issue,” Zaev told the media on Sunday, adding the opposition leaders was seeking ways to ‘harm the country, namely the processes leading us to EU membership.

Speaking at a news conference, SDSM spokeswoman Bogdanka Kuzeska said the Macedonian language and Macedonian identity have been recognized and confirmed internationally.

“We have an agreement with our neighbor Bulgaria on cooperation and good neighborly ties, which is by the way signed in Macedonian too. In the spirit of this agreement, we expect to continue building the relations. On the topics arising from the agreement, we are willing to find a solution through the commissions tasked with it,” she said.

On Saturday, VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski said ‘serious issues’, including the negotiations with Bulgaria, should be discussed by the party leaders at a meeting.

“Zoran Zaev’s rejecting the leaders’ meeting initiative of leader Hristijan Mickoski was an expected move, because he would have had to admit that the government and himself had been defeated in every field, foreign policy, healthcare, economy, education, corruption, etc,” VMRO-DPMNE said in a press release.

PM Zaev will visit Sofia in early November as part of the Macedonian-Bulgaria co-chairmanship of the Berlin Process 2020, where he is expected to meet his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borissov.