Northern Macedonia v. Bulgaria: We have not experienced such humiliation even in 20 years of negotiations with Greece

The president of Northern Macedonia broke out against Bulgaria Stevo Pentarovskiaccusing it of “blackmailing” and trying to “humiliate” its country, constantly raising new “unacceptable demands” in order to lift its veto on the start of Skopje’s accession talks with the EU.

Stevo Pentarovski, referring to the proposal submitted a few days ago by the French EU Presidency to resolve the dispute between Sofia and Skopje, considered that it could be a basis for finding a compromise solution, but he said that Bulgaria terms “.

Its president Northern Macedonia stressed that only yesterday, the Bulgaria submitted to the meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the EU member states (Coreper) five new “irrational” demands in order to lift the veto on Northern Macedonia and therefore – he said – the participation of the Prime Minister of Northern Macedonia Dimitar Kovacevski in the EU Summit -Western Balkans, on the morning of Thursday, June 23, loses all meaning.

“I advise the prime minister not to go to Brussels. We talked about this a few days ago and my advice was that as things go, with the Bulgarians constantly making new absurd demands, there is no reason to go there. To go do what? For photos only? “Imagine an EU-Western Balkans summit with the whole region making no progress on its European course and we just going there for the photo shoot,” Stevo Pentarowski said in an interview with his country’s television station last night. in response to the Athenian News Agency.

Stevo Pentarovski belongs to the ruling Social Democratic Party, led by Dimitar Kovacevski.

The President of Northern Macedonia characteristically stated that “We have not experienced such humiliations and devaluations that we have suffered as a country in the last two years from Bulgaria in 20 years of negotiations with Greece”.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vuτςiτς and the Prime Ministers of Northern Macedonia Dimitar Kovacevski and Albania’s Edi Rama had a teleconference yesterday in which they discussed whether to go to Brussels and attend the EU-West Wales Summit. The leaders of the three Balkan countries will decide today whether or not to eventually go to Brussels.

For the past year and a half, Bulgaria has been blocking the start of accession talks between Northern Macedonia and the EU due to open ethnic, linguistic and historical differences between the two countries, which has provoked strong reactions in Skopje and led to a cooling of bilateral relations. Bulgaria’s stance “entices” Albania, given that the EU’s position is that the candidacies of these two countries should proceed together, they should not be separated.

Serbia, for its part, began accession negotiations with the EU in 2014, but little progress has been made so far.