Both North Macedonia's president and prime minister slammed stumbling blocks put in place by Brussels over a dispute with Bulgaria over Balkan history, language and culture.
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00:00North Macedonia's prime minister has reacted angrily to reports that his country's European
00:07Union accession bid has hit a new hurdle because of a dispute with Bulgaria.
00:12Prime Minister Hristian Mikoski said the EU was trying to dictate what his country should
00:17do and suggested he wouldn't accept any further delay to membership talks.
00:22Those comments follow reports that EU ambassadors in Brussels decided to push ahead with Albania's
00:28EU accession process independently of North Macedonia's.
00:33The EU started membership talks with the two Balkan countries in 2022, but North Macedonia's
00:39bid was delayed by a dispute with Bulgaria over Balkan history, language and culture.
00:45To break the impasse, the previous government in Skopje accepted a Bulgarian demand to insert
00:50in North Macedonia's constitution a reference to a Bulgarian ethnic minority.
00:56And in her speech at the UN General Assembly, North Macedonia's President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova
01:02said the path to EU membership was like waiting for Godot.
01:26The country's EU path was also blocked for years by Greece over another dispute over
01:35history and heritage.
01:37It was settled in 2018 after North Macedonia changed its name from the previous Macedonia.