This afternoon, at a briefing, the government unofficially informed the media about its next steps regarding the French proposal for resolving the dispute with Bulgaria and starting negotiations for the country's EU membership. The government says that the proposal will probably not be debated in the Parliament, but will be accepted at a government session, after consultations with the president of the state and other stakeholders in domestic politics.

In this way, according to government sources, a split in the ruling coalition would be avoided, where some of the smaller parties have already expressed dissatisfaction with the acceptance of the initial French proposal, as well as possible blockades and incidents caused by the opposition.

According to "Focus", in contrast to last week's events in Brussels, today in the Government, the satisfaction of the Prime Minister and the relevant ministers was clearly visible, who are now naming the proposal as "European". They unofficially stated that the latest proposed changes that came from Paris were the result of Kovacevski's "historic NO" in Brussels, but also of months of unofficial talks with the first adviser of the French President Macron, whom they said had visited Skopje and Sofia several times unofficially.

The Government is also satisfied with the improvement of our position on the issue of the Macedonian language, and they claim that historical issues will not be the reason for postponing not only the first, but also the second intergovernmental conference. However, they could not deny the fact that the opening of the chapters (representing the actual beginning of the negotiations) will take place only after the inclusion of the Bulgarians in the Constitution, and that Sofia nowhere commits that she will not block us on any point of the further negotiations.

According to unofficial announcements from the Government, it is very likely that very soon, in the next few days, Macedonia will finally take the first step in European integration, after a long period of stagnation and blockades. This means that the First Intergovernmental Conference will be convened expressly, which at least formally and legally represents the date on which the negotiations of a country for full membership in the EU begin.