France, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council for the current six months, has submitted a compromise proposal to Bulgaria and northern Macedonia to resolve their differences.
The content of the proposal has not been made known, and it has been made known in all EU countries.
According to media reports from Skopje and Sofia, the “French” proposal allegedly takes into account some of Bulgaria’s demands, such as the inclusion of Bulgarians in the Constitution of Northern Macedonia and the protection of their rights.
According to the same source, if Northern Macedonia amends its Constitution on the issue, Bulgaria will immediately lift its veto on the start of Skopje’s EU accession talks.
According to the latest census conducted last year in Northern Macedonia, Bulgarians make up only 0.19% of the country’s population, a fact which official Sofia disputes and considers that the percentage of Bulgarians in Northern Macedonia is much higher.
So far, the governments of both Northern Macedonia and Bulgaria have not commented on whether or not they agree with the “French” proposal. The government of Kiril Petkov in Bulgaria, according to media reports in Sofia, has forwarded the proposal to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament for consideration. For its part, the government of Dimitar Kovacevski in Northern Macedonia has stated that Skopje will announce its position on the proposal, after the 27 EU countries first express a common position on this proposal of France.
Asked about this, the President of Northern Macedonia, Stevo Pentarovski, said that there was a political will on the part of Skopje to include the Bulgarians in the Constitution, however, as he noted, this could not be opened and changed within a week, but in about a hundred days. .
He added that in addition to this technical aspect, there is a policy: “There must be guarantees that the constitutional changes are the last request of the Bulgarian government. We demand strong political guarantees from the EU and not only from Sofia,” Pendarovski said. .
It is noted that Bulgaria has been blocking the start of accession negotiations between Northern Macedonia and the EU for a year and a half due to open ethnic, linguistic and historical differences between the two countries, which has provoked strong reactions from Skopje and led to a cooling of relations. .
SOURCE: AMPE
Source: Capital
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