04/11/2025 President
PACE President Theodoros Rousopoulos has hailed the remarkable progress made by North Macedonia in an address to its parliament in Skopje.
“Your country, dear friends, has always stood where histories meet — where languages coexist, and faiths intertwine. You know that coexistence is not theory; it is survival. You know that bridges are better than boundaries,” the President noted.
“In these thirty years of membership in the Council of Europe, North Macedonia has proven that moral maturity is not measured in size, but in the capacity to listen, to respect, and to belong,” he added.
The President made the address during a two-day official visit to the country, during which he met the President of the Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia Afrim Gashi and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Zoran Dimitrovski, among others.
Tracing the history of Europe since the second world war, and the key role played by the Council of Europe, Mr Rousopoulos – echoing Winston Churchill – noted that “the Balkans have known more history than most — but they have also produced more wisdom than they are given credit for”.
“Seventy-five years after the signing of the European Convention on Human Rights, and thirty years after North Macedonia joined our common home, the story of Europe continues — not finished, but unfinished, as every moral story must be,” he concluded.
The audience for the the address to parliament included the President of the Republic of North Macedonia and high-level officials, as well as senior judicial figures and religious leaders from the country.
