Skopje, 12 September 2024 (MIA) — The state will launch a probe into where the historical committee's funding ended up, according to Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski commenting on the public letter by former members of the Multidisciplinary Committee of Experts on Historical and Educational Issues between North Macedonia and Bulgaria, in which they complained about the committee's work methodology and said the committee should include OSCE, UNESCO or Council of Europe experts.

PM Mickoski said he welcomed the involvement of outside experts in helping find solutions to open issues.

"Now, whether we should comment any more or pay attention to these political platitudes by the former members of the historical committee – I don't think so.

"Hundreds of thousands of people's money and euros were spent for nothing. For something that resulted in a capitulation accepted by the Kovachevski–Osmani pair. This is more or less what this committee has essentially done and spent several hundred thousand euros of people's money on," Mickoski said.

"That this government, which received its legitimacy from the citizens to correct the wrongly led processes in the past, distrusts these old committee members is a political decision. This is not about involving OSCE or anyone else. Let them be involved, but let's also involve our inspectors and investigators to see where the money was spent, how much they were paid, those who did nothing, those who were an embarrassment to the people of Macedonia and sold out Macedonian interests," Mickoski said.

Answering a reporter's question about what he expected from the upcoming visit of the Macedonian delegation to Sofia led by President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova on Friday, Mickoski reiterated that the country wanted to build good neighborly relations.

"We will continue building good neighborly relations," the prime minister said. "Our motto is: 'We don't want what doesn't belong to us, and we do not give up on what's ours.' Building good neighborly relations is a European value and we should continue it.

"Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti was on a working visit here. We are also arranging a visit with Albania's Prime Minister Rama, either in Tirana or in Skopje. We are arranging a visit with Serbia's Prime Minister Vucevic in Skopje. I guess there will be similar visits with Mitsotakis and the Bulgarian Prime Minister. We saw each other at the NATO Summit in the United States. Our goal is to build good neighborly relations and we will continue doing so."

"We will fight for our interests as a country and that's that. This shouldn't come as a suprise," Mickoski said in response to the press after the commissioning of a local sports center in Butel.

On his meeting with the new EU Ambassador and whether they discussed "the passivization" of the European integration process, Mickoski said the country's integration into the EU remained a strategic goal.

He said the meeting included a retrospective of the more than two and a half decades following the signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement "so they would not forget what Macedonian citizens have done in the name of those European values."

"We agreed that we have many internal problems we will have to solve, but who doesn't? Every country in the world has many internal problems," the PM said.

"As for the concessions we have made in the name of this European perspective, no nation in Europe has come even close. We deserve to start our negotiations unconditionally," Mickoski said.

He also said the previous government, by accepting what it could not fulfill, jeopardized the country. He said wounds still remained from "the violent change of the Constitution when MPs were yanked by their ears" to vote.

"We simply cannot accept this kind of concessions without any clear guarantees," the PM said.

"They should understand this. Brussels should, if it really wants to, and if it really is willing to see our country at their table as part of the European family," Mickoski said.

"There is a way. No one can convince me otherwise," he said, adding that the nation should not be put through humiliating experiences over and over again.

"After all, the accession negotiations are negotiations and a process in which the institutions' capacities are strengthened. Now we are prevented from strengthening our institutional capacities, which need to be working in the future, over issues that happened ten centuries ago," the prime minister noted.

"This is not a European value. I am convinced that this is not a European value. So we are ready, as a Government, to talk as long as necessary to find a solution and start unconditionally walking that path toward full EU membership, to finally start negotiating.

"Because I am deeply convinced we are much more ready for this than many of the candidates already negotiating or about to begin negotiating, and dare I say even than some member states of the EU itself," Mickoski said. mr/