Nikolovski: Bulgaria Conditions Macedonia’s Accession in EU

Vice-president of VMRO-DPMNE Aleksandar Nikolovski said at a press conference that the government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are hiding from the public the fact that Bulgaria allegedly conditions the accession of Macedonia in the EU. “What Zoran Zaev and Nikola Dimitrov hide from the public is the fact that official Sofia demands changes in the denomination of the language spoken in our country into “official language of the Republic of North Macedonia” instead of “Macedonian”. If Zaev and the government led by SDSM accept this blackmail, the Macedonian language and identity will be lost forever, and it will also force the government to give up on the protection of the rights of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. This is a major scandal, and all top state officials, including Caretaker PM Oliver Spasovski, President Stevo Pendarovski and Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikola Dimitrov are keeping quiet about it,” Nikolovski said. FM Nikola Dimitrov issued a reaction to Nikolovski’s press conference. “Nikolovski is like a “political vulture” that can hardly wait for bad news. What he is talking about is a notice of official Sofia added to the registry of the latest session of the EU General Affairs Council that took place on 25 March. This is a strictly unilateral statement which reflects the position of a single EU member-state, and not the entire EU as whole. The EU itself did not list this document in the conclusions in relation to our country, and it has no legal effect over the decision of the EU to start the membership talks with North Macedonia. What worries me is not the fact that Nikolovski has no basic knowledge of diplomatic protocols, but the fact that he insidiously uses this information to destroy the possibilities for national unity among our citizens, while at the same time he himself claims he pledges for such unity,” Dimitrov wrote in his reaction on Facebook.