Bulgarian President and Prime Minister, Rumen Radev and Kiril Petkov respectively, accompanied by a representative of the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will soon visit Paris to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron, who will present a proposal on lifting Sofia’s veto for the start of Macedonia’s EU accession negotiations, BGNES reports citing sources of parties within the ruling coalition.

According to sources in the Bulgarian news agency, they were briefed on the visit at a session of Bulgaria’s National Security Advisory Council on Friday, focusing on Sofia’s relations with the country.

At the Council session, a representative of the Bulgarian Government informed that Sofia had received a promise from Paris that “all Bulgarian demands will be included in the negotiating framework for Macedonia and that their implementation will be personally guaranteed by Macron.”

In practice, this means that we fully trust Macron, but at the same time we risk falling into a decades-long dispute, because each of the member states will be able to block any decision. It will be an endless dispute, and we do not want a Turkish variant, said one of the BGNES sources, a participant in the Council session.

According to another participant in the Council session, the French plan contains proposals that are not entirely clear and it is not at all certain that the European Commission can provide guarantees for their implementation in the future.

Sources say France is insisting on such a solution “because of Ukraine’s desire to start EU membership talks”, which would be a very bad signal if Kyiv receives an invitation and Macedonia and Albania continue to wait. Macron’s plan must be ready before the meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives of EU member states, but must first be approved by the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, the source said.

Bulgaria, much more than Macedonia itself, not to mention France, which was the first to block Macedonia, wants the authorities in Skopje to start EU accession negotiations. The solution is possible and can be found very quickly, it is enough to have a minimum will by the delegations of the two Ministries of Foreign Affairs, adds one of the sources of BGENS.