The assertions that the Macedonian Government blocked the talks for joining the EU in 1995 are wrong and that can be proven. The EU membership at that moment was simply not an option. This is how the rapporteur on Macedonia in the European Parliament, Zoran Thaler, joined the ever fiercer debate between VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM and their leaders over whether Macedonia had a chance in the 1990s to join the EU and NATO under the reference of FYROM.

His reaction comes in the wake of the allegations of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and President Gjorge Ivanov that Branko Crvenkovski’s Government refused the invitation to join NATO and open EU accession talks under the reference of FYROM in 1995. Apart from EU Ambassador Erwan Fouere, who says that Macedonia stood no chance to begin talks with the EU, a few MEPs with deferring views of this issue got involved in the debate as well.

“We are concerned that someone in Macedonia is trying to rewrite history. It seems that they are creating political chaos to divert the public attention from the issue of how to reach a compromise with Greece,” Thaler says in his written statement.