June is Best Chance for Start of Negotiations, Says Foreign Minister Osmani

If the country doesn’t start membership negotiations with the EU in June, it could stay in the waiting room even in the next two years. “This is the best chance,” Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani said on Friday, adding that there was intensive work on the Portuguese proposal that didn’t cross the red lines set by Skopje and Sofia. Despite declining to predict the developments at the Summit in June, Osmani praised the approach of the caretaker government in Bulgaria as constructive. According to PM Zoran Zaev, what was also constructive was his phone conversation with Bulgaria’s caretaker PM, Stefan Yanev. Concrete steps that should set the road towards the solution were agreed upon as well. According to him, the EU owes North Macedonia a lot. As Zaev added, the country has waited for 16.5 years.