Skopje, 29 October 2021 (MIA) – Regretfully, the Macedonian path to the EU is maybe the hardest of all. We were among the first ones at the start line, signed the Stabilization and Association Agreement even before Croatia, which has been a Union member for eight years now, while we have not even begun the process, still knocking on the door, says Deputy PM for European Affairs Nikola Dimitrov. “We have received over ten good European Commission reports that are not sufficient to make the breakthrough. We have quite comparable results with both Serbia and Montenegro, countries that have been in the process for years. But there is no action, which diminishes the weight of these reports, even the Commission notes this in its enlargement package,” Deputy PM Dimitrov tells Euronews Serbia. He says Bulgaria compromises the bilateral friendship with its veto policy, thus also vetoing EU in the region it is part of. “We practically solved the issue by signing the Friendship Treaty with Bulgaria first in order to move towards Greece and solve the big problem. Article 2 of the Treaty reads that Bulgaria will help us on the EU path. However you interpret ‘help’, it surely does not mean veto. Therefore, Bulgaria violates the Treaty of, by the way, Goodneighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation. The treaty means support on the European path but also non-interference in domestic affairs, because the Macedonian identity, the Macedonian language is our business. It is not an issue for a third country,” notes Dimitrov. On relations with Serbia, he believes they are friendly. “We have a common past with Serbia as part of the former federation, and we want to have a common European future. It is true there were some problems, although I have never truly understood what the real problem was,” says Dimitrov.