The Bulgarian Government will not change its position to maintain its veto against Macedonia’s EU accession talks, the BGNES news agency reports, citing sources in the interim Government. Macedonia is hoping that it could be allowed to open its accession talks during the European Council meeting on December 14th.

Instead, Bulgaria will support allowing Albania to leave the group with Macedonia and open its accession talks, while Macedonia remains stuck.

Bulgaria will stand by the Declaration of our National Assembly from October 2019. This position will be firmly held by Bulgaria during the European Council meeting in Brussels. Bulgaria continues to support the basic principle of judging each candidate on its merits. Bulgaria believes that Albania is ready to advance on the EU road and is prepared to support the adoption of a negotiating framework for that country, BGNES reports.

The likely future Prime Minister of Bulgaria Kiril Petkov said that he would like to see at least six months of negotiations between various committees between the two countries, and major concessions from Macedonia in the area of national history, before the issue of accession talks could be raised.