North Macedonia is prioritising its partnership with the United States while continuing to seek EU membership, foreign affairs minister Timčo Mucunski tells Euronews' The Europe Conversation.
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00:00my guest on the europe conversation this week is foreign affairs minister for north macedonia
00:12tim chomachinsky he was here at native for the foreign affairs summit he says his country is
00:17ready to join the european union but he says if brussels doesn't act fast russia will fill the
00:23void foreign minister tim chomachinsky thank you very much for joining us on the europe
00:29conversation thank you very much for the opportunity to be a guest in your studio
00:34and so i might start off with eu enlargement for north macedonia i mean obviously you were one of
00:38the first of the western balkans to apply for eu membership over 21 years ago but it appears that
00:44well it's not appears north macedonia is very much lagging behind for a number of reasons around
00:50rule of law and we have these historical disputes with bulgaria and also the greek and dispute which
00:56was resolved but it appears less so now can you just talk us through this trajectory for north
01:01macedonia so i mean without a doubt we are one of these countries that has been historically since
01:07its independence committed to eu and nato integration we realized our goal of becoming a nato member
01:13but the key foreign policy priority of our country that has not been realized is eu membership
01:19this year is what i call a sobering anniversary it's 20 years since we have gained candidate status
01:27in the meantime the eu has has has enlarged we started this process at one point even going
01:35further back to the stabilization and an association process together with croatia croatia is now a member
01:41of schengen it uses the euro as a currency we still haven't opened accession negotiations of course there
01:48have been faults by governments in terms of lack of delivery on some issues without a doubt uh but
01:54what is also a fact is that we have been a victim of far too much bilateralization of the eu process
02:01instead of focusing on criteria on merit-based issues focusing on bilateral issues that have
02:06nothing to do with the substance of a nation's path towards eu membership this is a fair point and um
02:12two of those countries as i as i mentioned there bulgaria and greece in particular in the bulgarian
02:16issue because obviously these countries have a veto anyway so whether you like it or not the
02:21bilateral issues have to be resolved in some way will there be an inclusion for the bulgarian minority
02:26within the constitution of north macedonia the issue is uh much more than the issue of inclusion
02:33of the bulgarian minority and i'll try in a nutshell to to explain this to you uh first of all who has
02:38the most to gain from our country becoming an eu member of course first it's us without a doubt but
02:44secondary it is the countries around us that are member states of the european union and here i
02:49mean greece and bulgaria directly now in these more than 30 years of of an eu path we have made
02:57extremely difficult compromises as i've mentioned many times before we've changed our flag we've
03:02changed our currency we've changed our constitution several times we've even changed the name of our
03:06country all with the promise of a window of opportunity that we've been told existed if we do these
03:13changes for our path towards the european union and thus the question and the dilemma that we pose
03:19to both eu institutions as well as the member states is will this be the final compromise will we
03:25know that if these constitutional amendments are made six months down the road a year down the road
03:31again there will not be a veto because of a bilateral issue why we pose this question first of
03:38all to protect our own national interests to not allow issues related to language history identity
03:44to engulf our eu accession process but also at the end of the day to protect the credibility of
03:51european enlargement in the entire region because there are malign actors out there who like to point
03:56the finger and say do you really believe that the eu is honest in its intention for enlargement
04:02look at what they're doing to the macedonians and then we also had the prespa agreement which
04:05resolved the issue around greece but you have we have heard in the past or recently as some ministers
04:12refusing to use the name north macedonia which again will create problems and confrontations
04:17with greece is that an issue still i mean if if i speak personally as an individual and i remove
04:23myself from the position that i have then i i will never be able to say to you that i am happy with
04:28the prespa agreement that i believe the prespa agreement is good or that i believe the changing
04:32of the name of the nation is fair uh especially in the 21st century but at the end of the day
04:38as foreign minister and as a lawyer i understand that the principle of pacta sun servanda and that
04:44agreements must be kept especially in international public law is a fundamental principle and in that
04:51sense we are a nation that will respect its obligations but also a nation that expects its partners its
04:59neighbors in the region to also respect obligations in these agreements that they've made towards us
05:05okay because you mentioned their pacta sun servanda agreements should be kept and you know
05:09one of the issues that the eu has with north macedonia and joining the eu is around the rule of law
05:15independence of the judiciary various types of corruption and obviously that's hugely problematic
05:20because all eu member states will point to the deficiencies in the eu when they had the last
05:25bout of enlargement particularly countries like hungaria slovakia and and so on so where is north
05:31macedonia with making this making greater progress on this so this is one of the key priorities of our
05:37government our government was formed less than a year ago and it has taken very direct steps towards
05:45fighting corruption both high-level corruption but also corruption that exists in in mid-level and low-level
05:51civil service uh establishing a system of rule of law but this is not something that we can do overnight
05:57and i would once again reiterate it is also a whole of society effort it's not just about the executive
06:03delivering uh but it's about uh a cultural change that has to happen within the judicial system it's
06:10about bringing on board uh civil society and various different actors and how long will that take because
06:15i mean this has been on the agenda for as you mentioned 20 21 years regrettably it's been on the
06:20agenda uh in rhetoric for maybe more than 30 years uh but substantially very little uh has been done
06:28uh this is a process uh where we need to establish clear time frames many of these types of time frames
06:35going into the micro and meso uh aspects of these issues have already been done for us with the help of
06:40the european union and european union experts and then we need to start delivering uh because uh this delivery
06:47is about government doing its job uh but it's about creating this as i said cultural change within
06:54society which helps stimulate investment which helps stimulate entrepreneurship which puts young people
07:02in a situation where they don't want to leave the country because many young people are departing not
07:07just because of economic reasons but because of an unfunctional system of governance and also hopefully
07:14put our country in a situation where young people that are living abroad want to come back invest in
07:20the country build families in the country uh take part in in political activities in the country i mean
07:26this is a priority of our government i want to move on to the nato foreign ministers meeting you're
07:30here first of all can i ask you a little bit about russian interference in in north macedonia i mean
07:35one of the reasons why um enlargement needs to happen quickly they say is because the countries in the
07:40western balkans need to be brought into the eu away from the russian orbit is that something that you
07:44would agree with that narrative that premise uh i think enlargement needs to happen for many reasons
07:50but one of these reasons uh from a security uh perspective is of course the malign uh russian
07:57influence that has been existing uh in our region uh that is there i sometimes like to very openly uh
08:04point out that russian influence especially in our region comes very cheap and they know how to to
08:09utilize it is it through social media can you tell us a little bit about hybrid and cyber attacks
08:14what is it it's a mix of of of all of the very conventional methods if i can label them that russia
08:19does use and that happens in our region as well and does it impact young people's viewpoints does
08:25it impact political parties what is the in what is the um the upshot for countries like north macedonia
08:32so i think first of all generally uh our society and our political establishment going from
08:38government to opposition is uh extremely pro-eu and society wants to move uh forward uh towards
08:46uh eu membership but one of the things that happens in is when there's lack of clarity coming from the
08:51european union and the member states especially our issue is a prime example then you will have
08:57russian influence uh utilizing this to say listen the eu is not honest it will never integrate uh the
09:05region and if there's lack of delivery credible delivery on the other side uh then it's it's a
09:12battle that the pro-eu forces in our country have to wage with these various different spheres of
09:17influence that do exist uh and that will be utilized i think one of the reasons why the eu needs to be
09:24very quick and expedient in its delivery to the entire region is to show that the clarity is there
09:32the strategic vision is there can i ask you then why did your country abstain on the un
09:37and resolution condemning russian aggression in ukraine so our country i like to point out has
09:43three constants in its foreign policy one of them is 100 alignment with the eu's common foreign and
09:50security policy the second is our membership in nato and the third is our strategic partnership we have
09:58a formal strategic partnership with the united states in this situation what i can say is that
10:04we have been one of the most consistent supporters of ukraine from the nato member states we are one of
10:09the biggest supporters per gdp per capita for ukraine in terms of defense and security support but in
10:16this current situation because there was no alignment within the cfsp within the european union we chose to
10:23vote aligned with our strategic partner the united states which means that we do support ukraine and
10:30we do support the necessity for protecting ukraine's integrity and territorial sovereignty but we also
10:38agree that there needs to be a path towards peace so even that decision was in line with the very
10:44consistent foreign policy that we've had as a nation how do you find then the negotiation so far where you
10:50you it appears that very little concessions actually no concessions have been applied to russia from
10:55the united states and several to ukraine whether it's their energy systems whether critical minerals
11:02whether it's about a ceasefire i mean where how do you see the u.s treatment of ukraine vis-a-vis the
11:08negotiations so the perception that i have is that ukraine is on board with this process and is actively
11:14taking part in in this process and at the end of the day ukraine is a sovereign nation that must make
11:20decisions for itself what i can say is that we as a nato member country support the path towards peace
11:27it seems very obvious right now that the united states has a path towards peace which they believe
11:33is viable and in that sense considering that ukraine is on board with this process we absolutely support
11:40the process that is being led by the trump administration secretary rubio as well as
11:45the whole team in finding a peaceful solution as soon as possible okay foreign minister tim chomachinsky
11:51of north macedonia thank you very much for joining us on thank you very much for the invitation thank you so much