Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski repeated in a TV interview from New York that Macedonia wants the European Union to be present in talks with Bulgaria. The reason, as he sees it, is simple: the bilateral meetings so far have produced nothing of substance.

"The meetings so far at the bilateral level, held by the president as well as the minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade, are meetings that I call meetings just for the sake of having meetings," Mickoski said. After every such meeting, he added, comes a briefing "always with a completely different truth" from what was actually discussed.

That's the core of it. Sofia, according to Mickoski, doesn't want a third party at the table because that would amount to admitting that a dispute actually exists. "And we really do have a bilateral dispute. We can make things up, we can pretend we don't have one, but in essence we really do have a bilateral dispute that is now only at its beginning," the prime minister said.

"At least 80 times"

The most concrete part of the interview is the arithmetic. If negotiations opened tomorrow, every chapter and every cluster would have to pass a vote in the national parliaments of the member states when it's closed. "That's at least 80 opportunities for us to get new demands again," Mickoski said. The scenario he described is familiar to anyone who has followed recent years: a more radical faction in the Bulgarian parliament, followed by mainstream politicians saying that "because of domestic problems" they have to block once again. "I will not enter that process," he said.

The government's position, according to the prime minister, is that it won't set off on "any kind of adventure" without seeing the end of the road. The government, he says, has proposals for overcoming the process together with Bulgaria, a fellow NATO member. "If we are partners in that family there, logic says we should be partners here too."

Sofia's answer

Bulgaria stated its position back on September 25, after Foreign Minister Timcho Mucunski said the EU should take part in all future talks. The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry said Sofia "has always been and remains open to constructive dialogue," but that progress toward the EU depends on fulfilling commitments already made and on good-neighborly relations. Accession, according to Sofia, is a European matter to be settled in the European institutions.

Translation: dialogue yes, mediator no, and the obligations from the negotiating framework stay on the table. The two sides part ways exactly where Mickoski struck - is this a European question, or a bilateral dispute dressed up in European rules?

If the dispute isn't bilateral, why is it being settled only between Skopje and Sofia? And if it's a European question, why can't Brussels sit at the table? Sofia isn't answering that for now.