A condition for the Bulgarian government to approve the opening and closing of chapters with the European Union is  Macedonia to fully meet the 2017 Agreement provisions, in which historical issues are an integral part, the new Bulgarian Ambassador to the United States, Georgi Panayotov, has said in an interview with VOA.

The ambassador has also said that the Joint Commission composed of Macedonian and Bulgarian historians will have to solve all the periods of the common history before Macedonia joins the European Union.

A very important part of the 2017 Agreement is the bilateral Commission on Historical and Educational Issues and its work on objective, scientific interpretation of the common history of the two countries, Panayotov said.

Panayotov also added that once the history issue is resolved, the language problem will not be able to disrupt the relationship between the two countries.

According to him, the small changes in the French proposal did not change the essence of the Bulgarian demands, and if that was the case, Bulgaria would not have lifted the veto.