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Skopje – The Head of the EU Delegation in Skopje, Mihalis Rokas, at a joint press conference with the Minister for European Affairs Orhan Murtezani, emphasized that North Macedonia will receive EU support and maintains a high level of ambition to move towards accession negotiations, but to advance the process, constitutional amendments need to be adopted to include citizens living within the state borders and who are part of other nations, such as the Bulgarians, which it has agreed to do.
According to him, the structure of the EC Report is designed to be easier to read, hence the Prespa Agreement and the Treaty on Good Neighborliness and Friendship are found on its first page.
– There is no other reason, it’s just about everyone focusing on the essential elements where we give the recommendations to make it easier to read and then everyone to move on to the other pages to see what we’ve actually analyzed. Of course, it should not be said that good neighborly relations, regional cooperation remain essential elements of the enlargement process, said Rokas in response to the question whether having good neighborly relations on the first page of the EC Report means that the country does not fulfill the relations with neighbors well enough.
Rokas reminded that during the visit to Skopje last month, the President of the EC, Ursula von der Leyen, sent a clear message that “we have a clear goal to open the ‘Basic Values’ Cluster as soon as possible.”
– We have almost reached that point. We know it is about the constitutional amendments that your country has committed to implementing. Now we need joint efforts, cooperation, and dialogue, and I hope that all political sides in the country will unite and take this decisive step forward. She is confident, as the Prime Minister also said, that we can overcome the existing obstacles, said Rokas. (November 1)
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