Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia Hristijan Mickoski, who spoke yesterday at the Conservative Political Action Congress in Washington, said that the “Macedonian community in the US“ is conservative and supports President Donald Trump and that Vice President J.D. Vance's speech in Munich was inspiring, MIA reported, BTA reported.
“Macedonians are very traditional, they love their families, we may be few, but the Macedonian community in the US is a very important part of American society. I know that they supported President Trump during the elections, they are conservatives and I know that they will continue to support President Trump“, Mickoski said.
He described Macedonian society as multiethnic with two-thirds Macedonians and one-third – composed of Albanians, Vlachs, Serbs, Turks and others.
The Prime Minister of North Macedonia also said that his country was “on the front“ and “we fought against illegal migration, protecting Europe from illegal migrants“, which “today is the main focus of the government of US President Donald Trump“.
Mickoski also touched on the strategic partnership between the US and North Macedonia, emphasizing that his country is one of the countries with the largest contribution to NATO per capita. "We allocate (for defense) over 2 percent, we are committed and support President Trump's policies and we believe that 2 percent should be the lower limit, not the upper limit," he said.
The audience applauded the host's comment that Prime Minister Mickoski was the only one at the Munich Security Conference who applauded the speech of US Vice President Vance.
"For me, this was a historic event and in my humble opinion, maybe some European politicians will be angry with me, this speech of his was very inspiring," Mickoski also said.
Recalling that some of the conference participants had defined Vance's speech as interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states, Mickoski focused on the two strategic goals of North Macedonia after gaining independence from the former Yugoslavia, namely – NATO and EU membership. “We became a member of NATO, but before that we changed our flag, we changed our currency, we changed our constitution, we changed our name because one of our neighbors had become a member of NATO before us and abused the veto to fulfill bilateral demands. If this is not interference in internal affairs, then what is?“, asked Mickoski and stressed that the double standards continue to this day.
He stated that North Macedonia cannot join the EU because it is again under pressure to change its constitution. “If the constitution is not an internal matter of a sovereign state, then I ask – what is? Is this fair? If someone criticizes the speech (of Vance), which, in my humble opinion, was very inspiring, they should first point the finger at themselves and see what they (themselves) are doing. "European values are not a bilateralization of the process of accession to the (European) Union," Mickoski concluded at the largest annual meeting of American conservatives in Washington.