Zagreb, 29 August 2024 (MIA) — Croatia remains ready to help North Macedonia on its way to the European Union; over the past two decades, there have been many injustices toward North Macedonia and it is high time people showed respect for this, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković told a press conference Thursday after meeting with his Macedonian counterpart Hristijan Mickoski on his first official visit to Croatia.

PM Plenković said Croatia would advocate for accelerating North Macedonia's EU accession process.

"The issue weighing on the European path of North Macedonia is, in our opinion, unfair to the Macedonian people, the Macedonian identity. The Macedonian side has made so many concessions that hardly any other nation and country has accepted taking so many steps to speed up their path to EU membership," Plenković said, encouraging cooperation so that North Macedonia's accession talks with the EU open as soon as possible.

Prime Minister Mickoski said the great injustice inflicted on the country in the past two and a half decades required it to make concessions like no other country: from using a temporary reference to the state name, through changing its flag and paper currency, to changing the country's name through the Prespa Agreement.

"We have many internal problems," Mickoski said. "We will be solving them, no doubt about it. We will work as much as we need to. What is not up to us is the beginning of negotiations. Unfortunately, that depends on others as well. We have done enough. Now we need someone to open the door a little so we can enter the room to start negotiating and show what we are made of," Mickoski said.

At the press conference in Zagreb, Mickoski said the country was in a whirlpool of uncertainty even though Macedonian citizens greatly desired to be part of the EU family.

He said his hopes were that this injustice would be corrected through the efforts of the new government to implement domestic reforms and through the cooperation with the friendly Croatian government as well as other friendly EU member states "to make it possible for Macedonian citizens to join the European citizens as part of the big European family."

Mickoski recalled that the values ​​of Europe's founding fathers — French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Italian Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi — were European values to be shared by European citizens and politicians alike, so he hoped "we will not be victims of bilateral disputes on our way to full EU integration."

The two prime ministers also talked about deepening bilateral cooperation at all levels, especially at the economic level. Despite annual trade currently amounting to USD 300,000, they concluded there was room for growth. 

During PM Mickoski's first official visit to Croatia, bilateral agreements were signed by Minister of Education and Science Vesna Janevska and her Croatian counterpart, Radovan Fuks; and between Health Minister Arben Taravari and Croatian Health Minister Vili Beroš.

Thanking Plenković on the hospitality, Mickoski said: "I am convinced that the brotherly relations between the Macedonian and Croatian citizens will be at an extremely high level in the future, and our two governments will continue working to increase the cooperation between the two countries' citizens."

Next, PM Mickoski is meeting with Croatian President Zoran Milanović. Later in the day, he will meet with members of Croatia's Macedonian community. mr/