President of Northern Macedonia accuses Bulgaria of blackmailing and trying to humiliate the country

The President of Northern Macedonia, Stevo Pentarovski, accused Bulgaria on Tuesday of “blackmailing” and trying to “humiliate” his country, constantly making new “unacceptable demands” in order to lift the veto on the opening of the EU accession process. .

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 argued that Bulgaria sets “unrealistic” terms “.

The President of Northern Macedonia stressed that only yesterday, 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-Western Balkans Summit, on the morning of Thursday, June 23rd, 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, he has no reason to go there. “Imagine an EU-Western Balkans summit with the whole region making no progress on its European course and we just going there for photography,” Stevo Pentarovski said. last night’s interview on a television station in his country.

Stevo Pentarovski comes from the ruling “Social Democratic Union of Macedonia” (SDSM), led by Dimitar Kovacevski.

The President of Northern Macedonia characteristically stated that “we had 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 and should not be separated.

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

Source: AMPE