Macedonia has been kept out of the EU for too long due to artificial issues, said Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski during a panel in Dusseldorf.

In Dusseldorf, I participated in a summit dedicated to resilience in North Rhine-Westphalia. During the panel titled “Resilience as an Imperative for Society as a Whole,” I pointed out that Macedonia has been kept out of the EU for 15 years due to artificial issues. We are now facing an artificial demand from an EU member state—a situation that can be viewed as undermining the EU’s own resilience; such a gap in the system represents a systemic vulnerability. The collapse of a system is not always caused by weapons; it can also be brought about through other means. Therefore, robust action from the EU is required when a candidate country finds itself grappling with issues from the last century, raised by an EU member state, wrote Prime Minister Mickoski from Germany.

EU membership entails change through the addition of value, not a change of identity. We began this journey 26 years ago—even before Croatia, which is now an EU member state. We are fighting for our rights; we are part of NATO, fully aligned with the EU’s foreign policy, and we are protecting the EU against illegal migration—and we will continue to do so.