Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, who attends the EU – Balkan summit in Slovenia, issued a list of strict and all-encompassing demands aimed at Macedonia, which will determine whether Bulgaria will lift its veto against Macedonia’s EU accession talks. Radev demanded that Macedonia ensures a large representation of Bulgarians in its census, rewrites its national history and abandons the “Macedonianism” before it is allowed to open accession talks. Bulgaria claims most of Macedonia’s history as its own and insists that the Macedonians are “wayward and deluded” Bulgarians.

Macedonia can’t seem to overcome its catharsis. Our positions are clear. So long as this process there continues, so long as our compatriots there are still exposed to subtle assimilation and their basic rights are suppressed, we can’t say “yes” to the opening of accession talks. This is not a veto. We want what every other EU partner wants, that basic European principles and the interests of every EU member state are respected. We demand legally binding documents. We want Macedonian Bulgarians to be reflected in the census. We want that the historic truth is recognized, in the same way Macedonia did it with Greece. A break with the Macedonianism and with the hatred toward Bulgaria, Radev said.

Radev is in a difficult pre-election campaign, in a vote that will also include a general election for the Parliament. He is expected to meet with Zoran Zaev in Slovenia, with the leaders of France and Germany present in a new attempt to get Bulgaria to show some leniency to Zaev.