Milanovic: Don’t be a victim of extortion for EU membership

The state should not endure any extortion in exchange for EU membership. You get a lot of tips, from your neighbors, from international diplomacy, from the EU, not all those tips are smart, nor useful to you… You are the ones who will decide what is important to you. Just do not be a victim of blackmail or extortion when it comes to your EU membership, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said at a joint news conference with President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova.

– Here I do not mean to argue, nor do I think of your neighboring state of Bulgaria, they have their own ideas what it should look like. The rules are clear, need consensus, need unanimity. As long as someone is against Macedonia, unfortunately it cannot progress that path. The only question is whether this is still the most important thing for this world worth of life for you and your citizens or there are some other things that the state can define as a successful and realized community. But here I have no advice, that’s your decision – said Milanovic.

Milanovic stressed that Macedonia should be helped, but not treated as a special case.

– The country should never be treated as a special case with special needs, as a country with an error, but as a country that currently has certain problems, because some others disagree with certain things you hold. Okay, it cannot be changed. European law and Pacta Sunt Servanda, which the professor is called, is good to repeat, but the EU mainly does not work that way. Croatia is witnessing that we do not live in the illusion, but there are many good things in the EU, but not all good for the last years and months – said Milanovic.

Asked what his expectations of the military co -operation agreement that Croatia concluded with Albania and Kosovo, and whether Macedonia could be called into this military cooperation agreement, it was a declaration signed by three defense ministers.

– The agreement you are talking about is not an agreement, but a declaration or memorandum signed by three ministers. It is a memorandum signed by three defense ministers, two of which to NATO member states – Croatia and Albania and Kosovo, a friendly state that is unfortunately not yet recognized by all EU and NATO member states, and is not admitted to the UN. So this is not an agreement, but it is the Tratector of Croatian Foreign Policy. I support this agreement and I want to calm the neighboring states, to say Serbia, to have no problems with it – Milanovic replied.