Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani announced that solutions to the dispute with Bulgaria will be actively sought in December because he believes that a solution can be reached in that short term. However, neither the Macedonian nor the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have so far scheduled the planned meeting, which was to be held in October to discuss the "Roadmap five plus one", which contains the Bulgarian demands.

This meeting, according to Osmani, was first postponed at the request of the Macedonian authorities due to the local elections, and then once again postponed for the second half of November, at the request of the Bulgarian side due to the parliamentary and presidential elections there.

In an interview with the Bulgarian agency BGNES, Osmani said that good relations with Bulgaria and the European perspective for Northern Macedonia are without alternative. Asked what the authorities in Skopje will do after the repeated position of Bulgaria that it will not lift the veto on the EU membership negotiations, Osmani stressed that in the next period a solution will be actively sought regarding political issues.

- As you know, Northern Macedonia was the constructive side for finding a solution. In the next period, we expect the talks to start when the government is formed in Bulgaria. I think that in December there is a good chance to find a solution, because we have no alternative but good neighborly relations with Bulgaria. "We hope that this political stability in both countries will yield results," Osmani said.

The Bulgarian leadership has recently reiterated its position that at the EU meeting on December 14, which is the last summit within the Slovenian presidency of the Union, they will not allow the negotiation framework for Macedonia to be adopted. Bulgaria's ambassador to the EU, Rumen Alexandrov, recently told a meeting of the General Affairs Council (GAC) that our country "still does not meet the criteria for holding the first intergovernmental conference." He then said that the Republic of Northern Macedonia should undertake specific binding engagements, some of which should be implemented in the short term, and the rest should be among the requirements in the future negotiation framework.

"Until that happens, no progress can be expected in the enlargement process with Northern Macedonia," Alexandrov said.

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev yesterday in a telephone conversation with EU Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelji expressed the expectation that Sofia's dialogue with Skopje will lead to concrete results. Radev stressed that Bulgaria is open to dialogue, has asked clear questions and expects answers and real actions from the Republic of Northern Macedonia. The Bulgarian head of state also believes that the agenda of bilateral relations between Sofia and Skopje should not be subordinated to external influences, but should be conducted openly with the engagement of both countries, which will move forward the European integration process of Northern Macedonia. According to him, the main emphasis in that dialogue should be "respect for the rights of Bulgarians in Northern Macedonia, permanent eradication of hate speech and respect for Bulgarian history and cultural heritage."

At the same time, the technical Prime Minister Stefan Janev said that Bulgaria's policy remains unchanged. According to him, Bulgaria has very well stated its position to Bulgarian society, but not to its EU partners.

Macedonian Minister of Justice Bojan Maricic, on the other hand, told Commissioner Varhelji that the postponement of the start of negotiations with the EU will have a negative impact not only on our country, but on the entire region. The Minister is on a working visit to Brussels, from where he announced through his Facebook profile that he reiterated at the meetings that all the reforms that were requested from us as a country for the start of negotiations have been implemented, including those in the judiciary.

In the European Commission, Maricic also held a working meeting with EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders, to whom he presented the reforms that the Government is currently making regarding the rule of law.

"We agreed that the pace of reforms needs to be maintained, and the opening of negotiations with the EU will only be an additional catalyst for them," Maricic wrote.