At today's meeting in Skopje, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and Macedonia, Jan Lipavski and Bujar Osmani, emphasized the continuous support from Prague for the country's path to the European Union, and the strengthened bilateral relations, as well as economic cooperation, were confirmed.

- An important aspect of today's visit is, of course, the EU enlargement process, and I am glad that after the first intergovernmental conference, the negotiations for the accession of North Macedonia began in July of last year under our presidency of the EU. I hope the country will continue with the reforms and bring the constitutional amendments. I assured my colleague that he can count on continuous Czech support on the road to the EU, Lipavski said at the joint press conference with Osmani.

He emphasized that North Macedonia is a friend and NATO ally of the Czech Republic and that it complies with the common foreign and security policy, as is appreciated and noted in all reports.

- We expect North Macedonia to become part of the EU, and in the meantime we will continue to offer our help and cooperation on that path. Accession to the EU must be based on merit, and bilateral disputes should not be a reason for vetoing the country's accession to the EU. I am here to show and indicate that these issues can be resolved through dialogue, and I am sure that Bujar is doing everything he can, noted Lipavski.

Osmani said after the meeting that he and his Czech counterpart discussed bilateral relations, which are seeing an upward trend, exceeding 250 million euros in trade in 2022.

- I informed the minister about our economic advisor who is in charge of the countries of the Visegrad Group and I expect to strengthen the economic relations between the two countries, not only in terms of trade but also through the use of possible Czech direct investments, said Osmani.

He, in his capacity as chairman of the OSCE, also opened the topic of the serious disruption of the European security architecture caused by Russia's military aggression against Ukraine.

- I presented our highest priority as chairman, which is to stop further human suffering, to put in place the organization with field missions to mitigate the consequences of the war, but also to prevent new crises and provide support to vulnerable regions, following the slogan of our presidency, which reads "it's all about the people", emphasized Osmani.

Referring to the bilateral screening, he pointed out at the press conference that according to the preliminary information, the country and the institutions show a high level of readiness to implement that process, which, as he pointed out, is due to the strong political will in North Macedonia, of course the many years of experience we have.

Regarding the latest developments with Bulgaria, that is, the tensions created between the two countries, Osmani ordered that the cycle of deteriorating relations be stopped and that we return to the positive agenda in order to continue where we left off.