Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski laid out what he thinks would be a good solution for this current stage in the dispute with Bulgaria, that would allow Macedonia to open its EU accession talks.

Kovacevski said that Macedonia would agree to amend its Constitution in about a year and half – when it would open its first negotiating cluster – to include the Bulgarian community in the preamble. In return, he expects what he referred to as a “clean solution” on the language dispute.

That would be a good basis for negotiations, given that, as I’ve already said before, we are not willing to negotiated about the language and the identity. This is the position of the Macedonian people and the citizens should rest assured in this regard, Kovacevski said.

Bulgaria wants Macedonia to acknowledge that its nation and language are derived from the Bulgarian, and in its maximalist demands, that the Macedonian language is declared as merely a dialect of the Bulgarian. It’s not clear what a “clean solution” on this issue would be, or what would happen with the extensive Bulgarian demands that the Macedonian historic narrative is changed wholesale and Macedonian historic figures are declared as Bulgarians.