Macedonia Deputy Prime Minister visit to UK
Caroline Flint met Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration, Ivica Bocevski, during his visit to London. The meeting provided an opportunity to discuss Macedonia's future membership of NATO and the EU and to cement the bilateral relationship between the countries.

The two ministers gave a joint statement giving an overview of their discussion. Caroline Flint said,

'I'm very pleased to have been able to meet the Deputy Prime Minister Mr Bocevski today. We are very keen to support Macedonia's progress towards membership of the EU and NATO and to continue our strong bilateral links.

We are a strong ally and supportive of the journey that Macedonia is on. We look forward to the EU report and recognising that progress has been made because progress has been made, but also where we need to prioritise to have a road map for further progress in other areas. But I'm very glad that in my second week in the job as Minister for Europe for the UK Government I've been able to meet the Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister and I look forward to future meetings.'

Caroline Flint also commented on the series of reforms that have taken place in Macedonia over the last few years. She said,

'Congratulations to all the people of Macedonia. Politicians have their role to play but they are enthused and encouraged by the support of their people and my understanding is that something like eighty seven per cent of Macedonians support this journey to EU membership and I think that must give great heart to those who have leadership positions in your country to continue this journey. We need to make sure that ordinary Macedonians understand that we are working in different ways through our bilateral meetings, but also through sharing knowledge and information to help make that journey quicker and keep the momentum up and that's something that we will endeavour to do.'

Ivica Bocevski commented on the UK's support of Macedonia's future membership of the EU. He said,

'Today we had a meeting with Minister of Europe with regards to the common European agenda and with regards to the bilateral relations. We were assured once again that a sustained British assistance and the sustained British support for the Macedonian EU membership bid will continue also in the coming future. And also we have agreed that we're going to continue with the projects we're working on in Macedonia with regards to the European integration process, reform of the public administration, communications in the Government and other stuff dealing with the future steps and reforms.'

Finally, Caroline Flint thanked Ivica Bocevski and Macedonia for recognising Kosovo. She said,

'I'd just like to put it on the record that we very much appreciate Macedonia's recognition of Kosovo and this is a very important issue for the Western Balkans and we appreciate the responsible attitude that Macedonia's taken to that. It's important that, you know, in this part of the world where there are many countries that want to be part of the EU that we can have these discussions and recognise how we have to work as good neighbours. And, and I think it was a mature and responsible step, but a confident step that Macedonia took last week in recognising Kosovo.'

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