Skopje, 22 December 2021 (MIA) – The European Union is made up of countries with a unique socio-cultural development - you are not accepted there as no man’s land, like a rootless tree, President Stevo Pendarovski said Wednesday in his annual address in Parliament. “It is high time we asked ourselves what we are doing against the culture of forgetfulness and carelessness that dominates, because not only judicial and bureaucratic reforms are important for Europe, but also our cultural investment,” he told lawmakers, ministers and diplomats in attendance. We, Pendarovski said, have world reference works in that area and we must not be an exception to that rule, for ourselves, not for them and that is why much more care is needed for our language, for our pivotal cultural institutions, for our monuments, for the vital marks of our identity. “The decades-long denials of our identity have made us turn more to the protection and promotion of national cultural heritage. However, in the transition, unfortunately, the vulgar neo-liberal concept of total commercialization prevailed in the sphere of culture, which, in essence stifled many creative actions of the mind,” Pendarovski said amongst other things.