The Minister of Foreign Affairs of North Macedonia, Bujar Osmani, said that his country will not accept anything less than full membership in the European Union (EU), reports Anadolu.
Minister Osmani answered the questions of journalists who asked for comments after the statements of the high European representatives and the leaders of the EU member states. The question was whether North Macedonia is ready to accept membership with unequal rights in the EU if that is the condition, while referring to French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement about “Europe at several speeds”.
Osmani referred to the statement of the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, who said at the Bled Strategic Forum that the EU will be ready to accept new members in 2030.
Also, Osmani said that in Bled he received confirmation from senior French officials, including the French Minister for Europe, Laurence Bonn, that Macron did not speak about “speed” in the sense of privileged and less privileged member states.
“Macron’s statement, at first reading, yes, sounds like a denial of Michel’s previous statement. But in Bled was the French Minister for European Affairs, Laurence Bonn, who was also in Skopje earlier. It was Alexandre Adam, who was Macron’s adviser and the creator of the French proposal. They said Macron talked about speed in the sense that not all countries will come in at once, but at different speeds depending on which is ready, not ‘Europe in layers’, in the sense of privileged and less privileged, because we will not accept anything less than full membership in the EU”, said Osmani.
He stated that he has been promoting the concept of “more integration before membership” for a long time, which, according to him, provides for the country that fulfills a certain chapter of the negotiations to become part of that EU policy.
According to Osman, in this way the candidate countries will enter the common market, we will have access to EU funds and they will be in the EU even before the membership itself.
“The only thing we won’t have until then is the right to vote, which we will get on the day of membership. I think that way we will also have annual goals to achieve, instead of just one the long-term goal that is a little far away and creates disappointments for us”, said Osmani.
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