Less than a hundred people declared themselves as ethnic Bulgarians in the course of the on-going census in Macedonia so far, a former Bulgarian consul in Skopje, Ivan Ancev, told the Bulgarian press.

According to Ancev, this is a very bad result that will weaken Bulgaria’s claim to a large minority in Macedonia. Bulgaria has a policy of allowing easy access to large numbers of Macedonians to Bulgarian citizenship – over 100,000 Bulgarian passports were given to Macedonians since 2000, when the document became attractive because of the ease of movement it allows its owner through the European Union. Bulgarian politicians often point to the massive issuing of citizenships to Macedonians as evidence of a large, oppressed Bulgarian community in Macedonia, but the census paints a different picture.

Seventy two. This after 130 thousands of Bulgarian passports issued to Macedonian citizens because they awoke to their Bulgarian origin and declared before a notary that they have a Bulgarian ethnic consciousness. It’s clear that these passport holding “Bulgarians” see the Bulgarian citizenship only as a way to get a green light to enter the EU countries, Ancev told Faktor.bg, insisting that the claimants have likely made a criminal offense. He also urges the Bulgarian authorities to review the citizenships issued so far by demanding from the dual Macedonian citizens to submit a copy of their census application that will show what ethnic identity they declared – Bulgarian or Macedonian.