The Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a call to Macedonia to protect Bulgarians living in Macedonia from being called out on social media.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry is carefully following the constant publications of lists of Bulgarian citizens of the Republic of Macedonia on the social media, and the calls that something is done about them and they are taken care of. We expect the authorities in Skopje to take steps to put an end to this hate speech and to protect their citizens with a Bulgarian consciousness, the MFA said.

No specifics were provided in the comment. Bulgaria has issued nearly 90,000 citizenships to Macedonian citizens under a clause allowing citizenship to people who claim they have Bulgarian origin. This practice is common in Macedonia among poor people who want to live and work in Western Europe. After the veto of Macedonia’s EU accession talks from Bulgaria, commentators close to the ruling SDSM party tried to shift blame for this on this group of dual citizens. A few days ago a news site also published that a populist politician allied with SDSM, Stojance Angelov, has a brother who received a Bulgarian citizenship, and this report was shared online. SDSM has in the past alleged that their political opponents have Bulgarian passports as part of its propaganda campaigns, and even had a mobster run a printing press for forged passports to this end.

Relations between Macedonia and Bulgaria are deteriorating after the veto. Under the 2017 treaty, the two countries said they will not push minority claims and demand that the other country protect minority groups. But the treaty allows the countries to protect their citizens living in the other country, and given that there are far more Macedonians with dual Bulgarian citizenship than vice versa, it allows Sofia to demand action on the part of Macedonia.