Ivanov: EU failure in Balkans exploits China, Russia

The European Union leaves the door open for Chinese and Russian influence in the Balkans, due to its failure to engage and invest in the region. Until recently, we did not see Russian investment in Macedonia. But, as Europe is attracted to, it does not automatically stand behind its promises that the Balkans will become part of the European Union, it is like the EU's call to others to come and meet that space”, Ivanov says.

Macedonia's president, as the paper broadcasts, has declared that the EU is stuck in the thinking of the 20th century and small internal obstacles, with cʹrast unable to deal with today's challenges, including mass migrations and transnational digital crime.

Ivanov also emphasises Europe's failure to re-calculate investments in the east-west infrastructure corridor that connects the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea as an example of EU brevity, as focused on the north-south corridor that connects Greece and Serbia.

We are now in a situation in which we use Chinese money and loans for the construction of the European Corridor, which runs through Macedonia's territory. This is paradox. That's what I think when I talk about Europe pulling out. This is like calling for China”, Ivanov estimates.

The paper also analyses the situation in Macedonia through the prism of its European and Euro-Atlantic integrations, the name dispute and relations of the EU and China and Russia.

Macedonia's “goal of joining the EU and NATO at the moment is blocked by Greece, which vetoed membership talks due to multi-year disputes over the right of the former Yugoslav Republic of the name that also holds the region in northern Greece”, the paper states.

Ivanov, as aired by British “Telegraphy”, stressed that Greece's continuing deadlock over Macedonia's entry into NATO, or the beginning of negotiations for EU integration, left the country in geopolitical uncertainty, which characterises Europe's isolated approach to the challenges facing the continent.