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Many believed that the Prespa Agreement was overcoming the last hurdles to starting EU accession negotiations with North Macedonia. However, Bulgaria has decided to block the formal start of negotiations “due to open language and historical differences” between the two countries. In particular, Sofia does not accept to recognize a “Macedonian” language, considering that it is simply a dialect of Bulgarian. Furthermore, he calls for the “restoration” of historical events, for example, the removal of degrading Bulgarian terms from history textbooks.
What is Zoran Zaef’s reaction to all this? Speaking about DW’s Slavic-Macedonian program, the neighboring country’s prime minister said, among other things: “Bulgaria was the first country to recognize our independence in the 1990s. With this in mind, we wanted to confirm that we share a common history. , we accepted it with the Treaty of Friendship that we signed with Bulgaria in 2017. Yes, part of our history is common, but from this history two nations and two languages arose. “The statement that our origin is Bulgarian and our language is a language Western Bulgarian is really humiliating and unacceptable. “
“26 Member States have a different opinion”
Are there reactions from the rest of European capitals to Sofia’s “brake”? Do some people accept the arguments of the Bulgarian government? Zoran Zaef is adamant: “It is very difficult for them to understand the problem. They do not support these demands, because they want an explanation of how such things can be demanded. Asking us to recognize something that is contrary to the right to self-determination.” In what we believe about who we are and what language we speak … It is difficult for them to understand, that’s why the other 26 countries are surprised ”.
The Prime Minister of North Macedonia insists that “Bulgaria’s official position and strategic interest is the integration of the Western Balkans into the EU”, while recalling, in terms of bilateral relations, that “we already have a valuable agreement , which offers us solutions for the future, improving our cooperation in a number of areas, but we must be prudent and determined to fully implement this agreement, we have already achieved a lot in the last 20 months, we have joint committees that deal with historical and educational issues and they already have to meet ten times. “
The “Model” is the Prespa Agreement
Zoran Zaef has already made it clear that he does not want to “negotiate” with Bulgaria on issues of language or national identity, but believes that his country has shown positive handwriting. As he tells DW, “we have already taught lessons, not only with the Prespa Agreement, which was a great way to find solutions between two different national groups through diplomacy and European behavior, to bridge the differences by adding geographic designations” . North ‘on our behalf, in order to separate North Macedonia from Greek Macedonia. This agreement can be used as a model throughout the world. But the agreement that we signed in 2017 with Bulgaria also contains valuable elements for our common history. “Through this history we must develop good relations with Bulgaria.”
Source: DW / Boris Georgievski / Edited by: Giannis Papadimitriou
