Washington, 9 May 2023 (MIA) – Our strategic goals are concrete and clear. We became a member of NATO and we will become an EU member by 2030. It is good to have a benchmark that will serve as a guide and motivation to move forward the planned trajectory, Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski said in his address on the topic “The Urgent Need for Progress in the Balkans” at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Kovachevski said, "Macedonian citizens want to live in the EU, but at home, in North Macedonia. The EU is the vision for a better standard, for better and higher paid jobs, for European, Western values, at home."

“North Macedonia has overcome many challenges since its independence until today with courageous policies. For the past six years, as a Government, we have offered leadership and solutions and strongly stood behind the interests of our country, our citizens, the future of our youth, future generations,” Kovachevski noted.

“In six short years of a captured state because for 11 years we had a government that was populist and that didn't make decisions for the country to advance, everything was focused on talking about the past and you know for politicians it's always easiest to talk about the past, because when you talk you don't promise anything about the past, you just play on the emotional feelings of voters and citizens. So, I have never liked the politicians that talked about the past. We started working and talking about the future and that is why in six years from a captured state we are now a country which is member of NATO and now we see that value of being a member of NATO after the war in Ukraine then we started the negotiations with EU, we chair the OSCE, this is the biggest security organization in Europe and it is the last organization where there is still a dialogue with Russia. North Macedonia is chairing this organisation in 2023, and we are the first country that opened a strategic dialogue with the USA,” Kovachevski said.

North Macedonia, PM Kovachevski said, is a unique example of how open issues are solved through diplomacy and open dialogue.

“North Macedonia proved that there is a model of diplomacy with which these identity issues can be resolved and closed. We resolved the dispute with the Republic of Greece, it was not an easy decision because in order to become a member of NATO we had to change the name of the state and that is the most difficult and painful decision that anyone has made in history. We also had two difficult rounds of negotiations with neighbouring Bulgaria, first to reach the Good Neighborly Relations Agreement, and second to agree on the negotiating framework with 27 EU member states. The negotiations that I led last year were difficult because we had a clear goal that we had to achieve. We have certainly achieved the first, that the Macedonian language becomes the official language of the EU, without any footnotes, explanations. Second, that the identity of the Macedonian people, including its culture, as well as all the elements of our heritage, will become part of the whole mosaic of the EU and its nations. On the other side, we need to include a part of the Bulgarian people together with a part of the Croats, Montenegrins and Jews living in the country in the preamble of our Constitution because we already have parts of other nations such as Albanians, Roma, Bosniaks, Serbs, Vlachs and which are already part of our Constitution,” Kovachevski said.

Referring to the relations with the USA, the Prime Minister Kovachevski said that since the first day of the independence of North Macedonia, the USA has been the most important strategic partner for our country.

“I had a meeting with the State Secretary Mr. Blinken, a very successful meeting where the strong support of the USA for the European integration of North Macedonia was reaffirmed. This is very important for us because having this kind of clear message sends a message to all our partners in the EU, but it also sends a message to all the political parties in the country that, for different reasons, are not supporting European Union’s path of North Macedonia. There is no alternative for the country but to become a member of the EU, and no one has ever proposed a different alternative, except some political parties that are financed by Russia,” Kovachevski said.

Speaking about the new energy situation in Europe and the region, he said that after Russia's wrong decision to invade Ukraine, the infrastructure in which billions of euros were invested such as Nord Stream, Druzhba and other gas pipelines that supplied energy from east to west, now this infrastructure is useless.

“Now we in Europe have to build new infrastructure that will supply gas and oil from south to north, from north to south and from west to east. We are part of the corridor from south to north, and therefore we have already started the procedures and by the end of the year we will start the construction of a new gas pipeline between Greece and North Macedonia which will be connected to the new terminal that is being built in Greece,” he added.

He also pointed out that the situation in the Balkan region has now improved significantly - Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria are part of NATO. Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria became members of the EU. Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia are negotiating with the EU. Greece is a member of NATO and the EU.

At the end of the address at the Johns Hopkins University, he said that North Macedonia has a very clear vision for integration with the EU, has a clear plan for energy diversification, for building road infrastructure to the east and west, clearly aligned our foreign policy with that of the EU and started negotiations with the EU, successfully chairing the OSCE, and at the end of the year we should do the decision on the constitutional amendments, for which we received strong and undoubted support from the US Secretary of State and his team.