site.btaOpposition SDSM Party Leader Calls on North Macedonia PM to Present Plan for European Integration

North Macedonia's Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski has an obligation to present to the country's parliament the government's intentions regarding European integration, opposition SDSM chair Venko Filipce said in a TV21 interview on Friday.

Filipce urged Mickoski to convene the Parliament if he has any sensitive information from foreign diplomatic sources regarding North Macedonia's negotiations with the EU.  "I think the Prime Minister has a great obligation to articulate his plan, the government's plan," Filipce added. "How we are going to proceed, in what timeframe we are going to do it. Are they thinking of making us part of some other union, are they thinking of leaving us as an appendix in the Balkans - alone, isolated and without help," he went on, adding that not only did VMRO-DPMNE fail to deliver on its pre-election promises to improve North Macedonia's negotiating position with the EU, it worsened the country's relations with Greece, and then "in a very brutal manner" with Bulgaria.

Filipce expressed a hope that the plan of the re-elected President of the European Commission for accession of Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia should not be dismissed and Skopje has some serious work to do in 2024, 2025 and 2026, otherwise the country will be left with Moldova, Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina on its path to the EU. 

The SDSM leader said that if the ruling party does not call a parliamentary sitting, it will be initiated by the SDSM. 

For his part, North Macedonia's Prime Minister Mickoski said his government would analyse Filipce's proposal, before formulating a position.