Macedonia will use Bulgarian experience for EU negotiations

Wednesday, 24 October 2007

Macedonia will use Bulgarian experiences on its road to EU full-fledged membership in the sphere of utilisation of Pre-Accession Funds, conducting negotiations and screening, issue of cross-border cooperation as well as communication with media at the moment of conducting negotiations. This was agreed Wednesday at today's meeting between Gergana Grncharova, Bulgarian Minister of European Affairs and Deputy PM for European Integration Gabriela Konevska-Trajkovska. - The Republic of Macedonia highly assesses the political will and wish of the Republic of Bulgaria to cooperation on issues regarding the European integration especially significant issues, which are on the agenda for 2008, Konevska - Trajkovska said underlying the previous good cooperation between the two countries. Grncharova said that Macedonia so far has achieved large progress on the road to the EU and on this road has a partner in Bulgaria with which it shares close cultural relations, religion and history something that Sofia did not have when it conducted negotiations with the EU. - Negotiations are not an easy task. The EU is very experience and solid player on the negotiating table and it is in your interest to continue to swiftly conduct the reforms because their postponement makes them heavier and slower and time is very important resource, Grncharova said. She said that the entire preparation for EU membership is a process, which requires political dialogue, and what helped Bulgaria on this road is the achieved political consensus between the ruling and opposition parties in the country. According to her very important is building good coordinating mechanism and in this relation she praised Macedonian Government for formed working groups with resources prepared for negotiations for each of the chapters prior to receiving date for negotiations with the EU. Bulgarian Minister of European Affairs announced continuation of cooperation between the two countries with meetings every six months and several thematic meetings on European integration for next year.

 

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