Ivanovski and Mickoski on the same formula for the EU: ‘Yes, but not at any price’

Igor Ivanovski, who with the “12:05” Platform claims to replace the leadership of SDSM and politically challenge Venko Filipče, on one of the key state issues ended up in almost the same position as Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski — as Racen reports. Both say they are for the European Union, but “not at any price”; Levica, with Mecinović, also joined this “conversation”.

The difference is that one leads the Government, while the other wants to change the leadership of the largest opposition party. This overlap becomes even more interesting after Ursula von der Leyen’s messages from Skopje: the President of the European Commission said that North Macedonia belongs to the EU, that it will be welcomed with its identity and its language, and that Macedonian culture and language will enrich the Union; at the same time she repeated that the key step for continuing negotiations remains fulfilling the commitments taken on and opening the “Fundamentals” cluster.

Mickoski has long used the formula that North Macedonia will not become an EU member “at any price”; his argument is that constitutional changes must not be a step after which new bilateral conditions from Bulgaria will follow, while the Government seeks predictability and guarantees that the European process will not be blocked again with new demands.

Ivanovski practically repeated the same political vocabulary: “I am for the EU, but not at any price and not in this way,” he said, adding that including Bulgarians in the Constitution alone will not resolve North Macedonia’s membership of the Union. There is no proof that the positions of Ivanovski and Mickoski are coordinated, but the political parallel is clear: the platform seeking to change SDSM and contesting Filipče, on the European question, did not offer a clear alternative to the government’s approach, but arrived at the same starting formula — EU yes, but not under the current conditions.

As Racen notes, von der Leyen narrowed the space for the identity argument — when the head of the European Commission herself publicly confirms Macedonian identity and language, the “not at any price” formula must become more concrete: what is the price — the constitutional changes, possible future demands from Sofia, formal guarantees from the European Council, or the negotiating framework itself? This is precisely where Ivanovski has an additional political problem: if the new leadership on the most important foreign-policy question sounds almost the same as Mickoski’s policy, then the logical question is — where is the discontinuity?