Skopje, 20 June 2022(MIA) – The French proposal does not bring us closer to EU membership. We want to start negotiations or finish them and become members because we are in an exceptionally complicated dead end, burdened by Bulgaria’s demands, during which precedents are set for other candidate-countries after us, according to former foreign minister and deputy PM Nikola Dimitrov. In a statement for the media issued before the panel discussion organized by the Institute for Democracy and the European Policy Institute (EPI) dedicated to the presentation of document titled “The Bulgarian veto to the European integration of North Macedonia: What sort of benefits can Macedonia reap?”, he assessed that the French proposal undermined North Macedonia's positions and crossed the country's red lines, as well as inserting bilateral issues into the negotiating framework. Dimitrov added this concession was made easily without asking for Bulgaria to remove the unilateral declaration from the Macedonian language, at the very least, for which the Government is responsible. “In North Macedonia, we simply cannot add the Bulgarian community into our Constitution as per Bulgaria’s request, while Bulgaria still does not know where it stands with the Macedonian identity. We are not asking for our language to be recognized by Bulgaria. States don’t recognize languages, but they are under obligation to respect the right to self-declaration of the Macedonian people, which is what Greece did with the Prespa Agreement. The problem with this proposal is that it does not solve the Macedonian-Bulgarian problem because there is still denial. As long as Bulgaria sticks to this agenda to 'wake us Macedonians up', this problem will persist, and we can’t close the Macedonian issue with the last country that still has a problem with it, which is Bulgaria,” Dimitrov said. According to him, enlargement has to be linked to reforms, because "if we insert all sorts of bilateral wishes, we lose the whole essence. After all we’ve been through as a country and a nation, we deserve a European negotiating framework, a process in which we will compete with other Western Balkan countries, including Bulgaria, in terms of democracy, media freedom, the economy etc.” “We have a geopolitical moment in Europe wherein the need for success increases. To deliver to Ukraine and Moldova, things in the Western Balkans need to gain traction, in our country and Albania first and foremost. However, we can’t take the brunt again – a country which has suffered the most on its way to the European Union,” Dimitrov said. dk/ik/