The Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers it problematic that Macedonia received a “clear” Macedonian language in the negotiating framework, but it considers the French proposal as something it could not even hope for until just 6 months ago.
On June 23 of this year, in front of the Foreign Policy Committee of the Bulgarian Parliament, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Teodora Gencovska was supposed to present the position of the institution she represents regarding the French proposal and the upcoming vote in the parliament. Gencovska’s presentation was interrupted after the majority of MPs decided that the Committee did not need to discuss the proposal. A day later, the Parliament in Sofia adopted the French proposal.
The official documents that Gencovska submitted to the Committee included the Protocol from the intergovernmental Macedonian-Bulgarian Commission, as well as the Report on relations with Macedonia and the French proposal for the start of accession negotiations with the EU.
The report, which Gencovska did not present to the end, states the pros and cons of the French proposal from the Bulgarian point of view.
Among the key points in the Report is the one about the famous Protocols, which the Macedonian authorities still refuse to show to the domestic public. The Protocols are carried out in accordance with Article 12 of the Good Neighborly Agreement, which is now also stated in the Negotiating Framework, in the new, softened version of the French proposal, unlike the previous one in which there was a direct reference to the Protocol.
Bulgaria Ministry of Foreign Affairs Report It is indisputable, and it is stated in Gencovska’s Report, that the protocols were harmonized at the meetings on June 4 and 5 in Skopje with her colleague Bujar Osmani. What is uncertain for the Bulgarian side, as stated in the Report, is whether “Skopje will violate the original agreement, that those texts should be accepted as unproblematic and already agreed upon.”
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