Portuguese Foreign Minister Describes Statement by Zacarias as Mistake

Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva has said that the statement made by his country’s Secretary of State for European Affairs, Ana Paula Zacarias, regarding the language, in which she says “North Macedonian language” is a mistake. As he pointed out on Wednesday, one can’t expect diplomats and politicians to be linguistics experts, while Zacarias meant to say “Macedonian language”. The Portuguese Foreign Minister added that the content of his country’s proposal had been accepted by North Macedonian and could be accepted by Bulgaria. “We’re talking about Macedonian language and proposing that with a unilateral declaration supported by a declaration of the Council of the EU, each country define its position, Macedonian is a language defined in accordance with North Macedonia’s Constitution and was codified in 1945,” he stressed, adding that if one wanted to know the Portuguese Presidency’s stand, they should read the text.