Regarding the dispute over mutual recognition of minority rights, VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski made a new proposal to Bulgaria – he asked the country to put it in writing that this will be its last request from Macedonia, and to apologize for the deportation of the Macedonian Jews during the Second World War.
One of the Bulgarian demands at the moment is that Macedonia amends its Constitution and names the Bulgarian community in its preamble. This requires the VMRO votes in Parliament, and Bulgaria is outright refusing the key VMRO request for reciprocity – that the ethnic Macedonian community is also named in the Bulgarian Constitution, causing an impasse. The Zaev – Kovacevski regime is beginning to ask VMRO for their help on this issue. Even Zaev was hoping to make this concession late in the accession process, but Bulgaria wants the constitutional changes done immediately.
We don’t change our positions. There needs to be reciprocity or written guarantees that this will be the last demand before they lift their veto and that there will be no more stupid blockades or attempts to persuade us that we were Bulgarians until 1944. There is give and take in life, not just take. Let them remove their demands to redefine our language, nothing more, and we will agree that there is a change in their positions, Mickoski said.
As alternative gestures of good will from Bulgaria, Mickoski said that this country should finally implement some of the numerous international verdicts in favor of organizations of Macedonians from Bulgaria who are banned from even being established or working freely. Mickoski also called on Bulgaria to apologize for its role in the deportation of 7,200 Jews from Macedonia during the Second World War, who were all killed in the German death camp of Treblinka. Macedonia was under Bulgarian occupation during the war and while Bulgaria eventually refused German demands to hand over its own Jewish citizens, it deported the Jewish communities from Macedonia, parts of Greece and Serbia.
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