North Macedonia is a strategically important country in the Western Balkans, which was granted EU candidate status nearly 20 years ago, alongside Croatia. But while Croatia has now long been a member of the EU, North Macedonia is still waiting. We look at the reasons for the many delays with the country's Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski. We also discuss his official visit to France, a country that effectively blocked North Macedonia's EU membership in 2019 – although relations between the two countries are now much better, Nikoloski states.

Nikoloski describes how his whole adult life has been marked by the limbo surrounding North Macedonia's EU membership. "It is true that he we have been waiting for 25 years," he says. "It was 2000. I was in high school when we got an association status to the European Union during the [Thessaloniki] summit. Back in 2005, I was already at university, we got candidate status. And back in 2008, we got the first recommendation to open accession talks. At that time I was already a member of parliament for two years. Today it is 25 [years]. I'm deputy prime minister and we have still not opened accession talks. There are many reasons, but two are crucial. For a long period we had a veto by Greece. It was resolved back in 2018. Then there was the reform of the European Union and the block of France that you mentioned back in 2019. As soon as it was resolved in 2020, our dear friends from Bulgaria decided to issue a veto on us, and since then we are under veto of Bulgaria. Unfortunately our neighbourhood is as it is."

We put it to Nikoloski that the European Parliament has called on his country to make constitutional amendments and to include the Bulgarian minority in North Macedonia in those amendments. In other words, there is a European consensus asking for constitutional changes, rather than just Bulgaria. Nikoloski counters: "The substance of the problem is that Bulgaria is using its membership of the EU to put pressure on us. They are neglecting our language, our culture and our national identity. There are 14 decisions by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria that Bulgaria is not implementing. So on one side, you don't respect what the European Court is saying. And on the other side, you abuse your position to block the neighbour. That's why we are stuck."

Again, we put it to Nikoloski that Bulgaria is not solely responsible for the delays in North Macedonia's EU accession. The European Commission, in its last enlargement report, gave arguably a lukewarm assessment, noting "some level of preparation" in key areas, while the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee has talked of "worsening trends in high-level corruption and low public trust in the judiciary". Nikoloski responds: "I totally agree. This government was elected one year ago and the biggest challenge was the judiciary. The public trust in the judiciary is only 2 percent, and we are not satisfied with the level of the judiciary and the prosecutor. We will do the reforms together (with the EU). There is a big expertise that is coming from the European Commission that we are using for this, and we are thankful for that."

Nikoloski also holds the transport portfolio in the government of North Macedonia, which is important given the country's connectivity projects. "We have a very unique geographical location. Two pan-European corridors are intersecting just east of our capital, Skopje, which is a unique case in the entire southeastern Europe," he says. One of those corridors was declared "as the second most important corridor for NATO because it is an alternative route for the supply of Ukraine", he explains. Nikoloski goes on to say: "We have huge plans and that is why we signed a government-to-government agreement with the United Kingdom, where we have £5 billion or €6 billion at our disposal for these kinds of projects. I'm looking for something similar as well in France, and we are looking for that kind of partnership with other countries in Europe as well."

Programme prepared by Luke Brown, Perrine Desplats and Isabelle Romero