Skopje-Sofia Issue: Stoev Would Like to see Results During Slovenian Presidency

Bulgaria’s caretaker Foreign Minister, Svetlan Stoev, believes that Skopje’s EU accession process is not just a wish of the organisation. He said on Monday there had to be proven activities on the part of North Macedonia to convince not only the European partners, but also its eastern neighbour that it wished to bilaterally resolve problems that existed and prevented Sofia from green-lighting a start of the accession process. According to Stoev, Bulgaria works on two lines, that is, bilateral dialogue and EU members providing guarantees in the frames of the negotiations that the deals signed by Skopje, including also with Bulgaria, will be implemented in the future. As he added, the short road is a bilateral one, while the long is when one needs to go through all EU members to get a response to include elements in the negotiating framework that satisfy Bulgaria.