Washington, 14 July 2022 (MIA) - EU accession is something that should be discussed by North Macedonia and the bloc and Washington has always supported North Macedonia's EU accession, U.S. Ambassador Kate Mary Byrnes said in an interview with MIA, saying she hoped the French proposal will be a compromise that will open next steps. MIA's Washington correspondent spoke to Ambassador Byrnes at the Department of State during her stay in Washington about current developments, discussions and concerns emerging in the Macedonian public involving the European proposal for North Macedonia's start of negotiations with the EU. Asked whether the U.S. has seen the protocol's content and whether it is something the Macedonian citizens should be concerned about, Byrnes said they look at the processes separately. "We’ve always said that the bilateral issues should be dealt with and addressed outside of the negotiating framework. We have taken a very clear position on the proposal and our assessment is that it protects North Macedonia’s interest in the accession process," she said. Following is the interview in full: Starting with my first question, the French proposal, for the start of the country’s negotiation process with the EU steered out of speculations, lengthy political and expert debates, not only in North Macedonia, but in some European capitals as well. The Macedonian opposition took to the streets to protest and seek rejection of this proposal, and the demonstrations have been taking place for over a week now. Can you comment on this situation? Let me back up and talk about our position. I’ve been Ambassador for three years and part of my mandate has been to support North Macedonia’s Euro-Atlantic integration. We worked very hard on the NATO accession process, and the next step, strategically, would be the EU accession process. We’ve been very pleased that, for some time now, the EU has thought that Macedonia is ready to join, and it’s been waiting for the process to start. In the recent months, what we saw through the diplomatic engagements between Brussels and North Macedonia, and other EU member states, it was support for the resolving the issues and moving forward. We weren’t part of that, but the US regularly reiterated our support for finding a path forward to allow North Macedonia to start the accession process. In that context, we saw the offering of the European, or the French proposal as an opportunity to finally start what we’ve been hoping would start for a long time, and so we have reiterated our position on that yet again. We’re now watching the situation in North Macedonia, the public debate, anticipating a parliamentary discussion in the next couple of days, which is important and is one of the points that Secretary Blinken underscored in his joint statement with Borell. We hope that this compromise will lead to the next step. The Macedonian public is worried, not about the proposal itself, but about some parts, as we know, the protocols are still confidential, so the opposition thinks that they are land mines that Bulgaria can use to create obstacles or to make different unacceptable claims related to the identity and history. Is the US familiar with the content of these protocols and is there something in them that Macedonia should be worried about? We look at the processes separately and we’ve always said that the bilateral issues should be dealt with and addressed outside of the negotiating framework. We have taken a very clear position on the proposal and our assessment is that it protects North Macedonia’s interest in the accession process. That has been our read, the read of our experts and that’s an important part of it. The bilateral protocol issues we talked about is being somewhat conflated with these two processes. That is a bilateral protocol that will take place between Sofia and Skopje. We have heard things thrown out there and I think this is part of the confusion that the public isn’t sure what the discussions are, but that will be a separate discussion. We think that those issues have to be addressed on a bilateral basis and that they should be addressed as such because it’s important to address them, not only for EU accession, but for your long-term regional stability as well. Macedonia and Bulgaria are neighbors. They are NATO allies. They are invested in each other’s future security, so those will have to be addressed in some kind of format and that is being addressed outside of the negotiating framework. This is one of the reasons why we think the French proposal protects North Macedonia because it makes that separation. Your open letter to the Macedonian public was accepted very positively by your colleagues, the diplomatic corps, by the government officials and leaders. However, some participants in the expert community have some minor objections, saying that the US has good intentions, but it should be based on actual support. For example, maybe you missed his tweets, but professor Eduard Joseph suggested that since you believe that the proposal recognizes the Macedonian identity and language, the US should also do the same, to officially recognize the Macedonian identity and language vis a vis Bulgaria’s denial. Mr. Joseph also says that this can cause a positive effect like when Washington recognized the country’s constitutional name in 2004 despite strong objections. He suggests that it can be done in a bilateral culture, using the text of the Prespa Agreement. Is this possible? Can the current Biden administration prepare such a solution that can be backed up by the Congress? First of all, we’re dealing with a specific decision that North Macedonia has to make right now with respect to its EU accession and whether or not the proposal on the table is a good proposal for their way forward and whether it respects the Macedonian identity and language. In our view, it does. We’ve seen several statements from senior EU leaders and member states that also recognize the value of this proposal as recognizing the Macedonian language and identity. The Macedonian citizens, being those to make this decision, should consider this. I’d love to go back and talk more about why I wrote that in the open letter. The US’s engagement in North Macedonia is also important, but it doesn’t replace the relationship between North Macedonia and the EU. The US and North Macedonia have a very strong bilateral relationship, and we were able to reinforce it just last month with the Strategic Dialogue that took place in Washington. It covered a lot of issues, including cultural issues and ways that we could cooperate in new areas and expand on that relationship. We’ve long recognized the Macedonian language and identity, we have diplomats preparing to study the Macedonian language with Macedonian language teachers, we have grants and supports for cultural projects that support the preservation and protection of the heritage in North Macedonia, and we actually have a cultural agreement between the US and North Macedonia dating back from 2010. During the Strategic Dialogue, we looked at ways to use this agreement to build on some projects, create some new ones, do some more cooperation together. Because this is such a complicated issue, a lot of things are being conflated, there’s value in all of these things, but we have never seen that the US relationship, bilaterally, is the only avenue with which we cooperate with North Macedonia. We also have the NATO relationship, which is very important. We’ve been looking into supporting the Open Balkan Initiative and whether or not the US could play a role there. We want to see a fourth pillar: supporting Macedonia through its EU accession, and that’s why we don’t want to see this opportunity missed. Many people in Macedonia fall for fake news on social media regarding the country’s EU future. There are some narratives like “this will destroy our identity, history” and so on. Do you agree with President Stevo Pendarovski, who said that foreign actors of third countries wage a disinformation campaign in North Macedonia, they poison the space with lies and try to divide the Macedonian society? I don’t have any information on the current situation, but disinformation and misinformation are a problem in all of our societies. It is something that we confront on every major political issue in the US, just as you do in North Macedonia, and we have seen it be used in the past, but that is why I think it’s important to have sources and transparent public debates, as well as parliamentary debates. Real readings of what’s in these documents need to be presented, and the people need an opportunity to respond. Last June, President Biden signed an executive order to block US entry for citizens contributing to the destabilization of the Western Balkans. Many foreign actors speak more about Bulgaria and we see statements from different persons and politicians who supported the veto against Macedonia’s entrance to the EU, who denied Macedonia’s statehood, history and language, so these politicians are undermining the stability in North Macedonia. For example, members of the parliament of Revival, a Bulgarian nationalistic party, showed posters with the sign “Macedonia is Bulgarian”. Do they fall under this executive order signed by Biden? I don’t think that’s what the executive order is for. It’s primarily focused on US national security and how our interests in the region are affected. The specific cases that you’re talking about, I’m sure there will be a discussion about these cases, but I don’t think that this rises to the level of this executive action. There’s a difference between free speech and hate speech, and those are important distinctions. It is up to the countries involved to make those determinations. Let me go back to the open letter. The US has had a position on your entry to the EU for decades and we’ve long supported Macedonia’s accession process. The EU enlargement as a whole has been a strategic goal for the US. When the proposal was presented, we got the question “What is the US position on this proposal?” We were answering that for some political leadership, experts, analysts, and we realized we should discuss this with the citizens, too. There were a lot of questions about whether the relationship with the US could somehow change what was in the proposal and it was important to make the people understand that no, when it comes to the accession process, that is a conversation that has to take place between North Macedonia and the EU, we don’t have a seat at that table. The US does, however, have an interest in seeing you get a seat at that table and talk about what’s important for North Macedonia. That’s why we said we hope you consider this opportunity. We think that this will not only ensure your EU future, but your Macedonian future as well because the proposal does offer recognition for the Macedonian language and identity, and let’s not even mention the benefits that come with beginning the accession process, including having the expert teams from Brussels come here, for your teams to go to Brussels, the release of funds, the screening process and the opportunity to start to set the terms of the discussion.