The Macedonian Association “Ilinden” -Tirana, reacts sharply to, as it says, the unfounded claims of the Association for Bulgarian-Albanian Friendship from Korca, for the existence of a Bulgarian minority in Albania, as a reaction to the position of “Ilinden” that in this country there have never been Bulgarians.

The “Ilinden” association reminds that with the 2011 census in Albania, no citizen in the country declared himself a Bulgarian, and this was confirmed by the 2014 special report of the Ombudsman, which states that according to ethnicity and culture there live members of the Macedonian, Greek, Vlach, Serbian, Montenegrin, Roma and Egyptian national minorities.

However, Bulgaria, from the position of a member of the European Union, blackmailed the Albanian state to invent and prove that the Macedonians in Albania are Bulgarians. Threatening with the Bulgarian “democratic and European veto” for Albania to start accession negotiations, they managed to get a non-existent Bulgarian minority in Albania. The threats against the Albanian Government bore fruit, so on October 12, 2017, the Parliamentary Legal Commission unanimously accepted the inclusion of a Bulgarian minority in the text of the law. Of course, the only Macedonian party in the Albanian Parliament – the Macedonian Alliance for European Integration spoke out against the inclusion of the Bulgarian minority in the law on national minorities in Albania. Macedonians in Albania also reacted to this, believing that the recognition of a non-existent Bulgarian minority in the Prespa, Golo Brdo and Gora areas is a violation of international law, because these areas are inhabited by Macedonians, not Bulgarians, said the “Ilinden” association.