Opening remarks

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this meeting. Prime Minister Kovačevski, Dimitar, thank you so much for hosting us. It's great to be here in Skopje, and to have this opportunity to meet with leaders of NATO Allies in the region. Prime Minister Edi Rama, great to see you. President Zoran Milanović, good to see you again. And Prime Minister Milojko Spajić, welcome.

And good to see you all it is important that we meet because this region, the Western Balkans, has great importance for NATO and for Europe, and today we will discuss the security situation in the region and beyond. I have just finished a tour in the region in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Serbia, and in Kosovo, before I ended here in North Macedonia and Skopje.

And, of course, you know, as well as I, that tensions have risen in Bosnia-Herzegovina, we have seen some serious incidents of violence in Kosovo and the normalization process risks stalling. So all of this makes it even more important that we sit down and address a way forward to prevent tensions from further increasing, and to ensure peace and stability in the wider Western Balkan region. Then, we also have a bigger picture. We face more global great power competition, the war in Ukraine rages on, and there’s a new war in the Middle East. And all of this makes it even more important to ensure that we have a strong NATO a strong transatlantic bond.

And during our meeting, I also hope that we can address the preparations for the upcoming summit in Washington which will be the 75th anniversary of the Alliance. But we have to ensure that, at that meeting, we don't only celebrate what we have achieved, but also that we make decisions and look into the future to ensure that NATO continues to be the most successful Alliance in history. So once again, thank you so much, it's good to see you all, and I give the floor to you, Dimitar. Please.

Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia Dimitar Kovačevski: Thank you, Secretary General. First of all, I want to say good morning and welcome to all the leaders today to Edi, to Zoran, to Milojko. Welcome to Skopje and thank you for accepting our joint invitation to participate in the informal leaders meeting today.

I hope we will have a fruitful discussion on all issues of importance for NATO and for the region. As the Secretary General of NATO stated in his recent remarks, I welcome an open and frank exchange as we are among friends here on this table. These meetings and events are a great opportunity to give laser focus on the matters that are of concern of each of us and of our countries, and for the region as a whole. On behalf of all of us present today, I would like to send wishes for a speedy recovery of our colleague, the Prime Minister of Slovenia, dear friend Robert Golob, who we hope will join us on the on the next meeting that we will have.

So thank you Secretary General, thank you all, and we can continue with the meeting without the media.