English
The meeting of the joint historic committee between Macedonia and Bulgaria ended today without progress. The Macedonian team issued a statement saying that “again the differences in positions and viewpoints came to the fore”.
The two teams discussed organizing joint honoring of historic figures, but only “as a principle” and did not discuss specific historic events. The teams discussed 7th grade history books in Macedonia and the legacy of Goce Delcev.
Bulgaria expects Macedonia to accept its historic narrative and is indicating it will use it as a condition of allowing Macedonia to advance toward the European Union.
Relations between the two countries took another hit today as the court in Bitola handed a suspended prison sentence to Bulgarian activist Ljupco Georgievski. He was charged with hate speech for honoring former VMRO leader and collaborator of the Nazi regime in Croatia Vanco Mihajlov. Bulgarian authorities said that the sentencing is an event that will fundamentally change their approach toward Macedonia.
