The European Council is scheduled to meet tomorrow, and Macedonia will receive official word on where it stands with regard to the announced Bulgarian veto. Bulgaria demands major concessions from Macedonia on issues of national identity and history and Prime Minister Zoran Zaev already announced that, in all likelyhood, Bulgaria will block the hoped-for opening of EU accession talks for Macedonia, at least until the end of 2020.

We need to prepare our Macedonian people that the inter-governmental conference may not be held, Zaev acknowledged, as Bulgarian opposition grew stronger.

Zaev has been announcing the certain opening of accession talks since mid 2018, with his infamous airplane selfie – when he and top Government officials announced to the country that the date was secured.

Zaev insisted that this will be the reward for the unprecedented concessions he made to Greece and promised to Bulgaria. In 2018, he said that the talks begin in mid 2019, but France thought otherwise. French objections – officially over the way EU enlargement is conducted – were lifted in early 2020, but then Bulgaria came to the front. Macedonia is in a de-facto group with Albania, which is also expected to be blocked, mainly due to its failure to deliver on rule of law issues.

Zaev campaigned in the July 15 2020 elections on the just lifted French veto. The elections were held before Bulgarian objections were raised in full force. Zaev now faces a vote of no confidence and major rift in his own SDSM party after he promised to accept all Bulgarian demands, and give rewrite Macedonian history while blurring the distinction between the two nations.