In a New Year interview with Klan TV, VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski condemned the demands Bulgaria placed before Macedonia, and its veto of Macedonia’s EU accession talks. Mickoski called on Brussels to intervene in the dispute, because “what Bulgaria wants is neither humane nor fair”.

It’s not just Macedonia now, Albania is placed in the same position, as Bulgaria asks it to declare that it has a Bulgarian minority. This question is not logical, unfounded. Albania and Bulgaria have no border. That show how Bulgaria wants to create a problem where there is none, Mickoski said in his interview with the Albanian language TV.

He blasted Bulgaria for its claim that the Macedonian nation did not exist prior to 1945. “What do we tell the people who left the country before 1945, who are proud Macedonians across the world?”.

Regarding the census which the Zaev regime is proposing in 2021, Mickoski said that ethnic Albanians should not fear that a relative decline of their share of population would reduce their political rights. Zaev insists on a law that would count emigrants as residents, which is a key demand from Albanian parties, who fear that the high emigration rate of their community could bring them below the 25 percent they reached in the 2002 census, and possibly even below the 20 percent mark named in the 2001 Ohrid peace treaty.

This is a statistical operation. No political wants to reduce political rights. And if we agree that this is just a statistical operation, then we need to build trust and reach the proper parameters. Albanian media allied to Zaev are scaremongering that VMRO will have Albanians below 20 percent. Statistics show that 28 to 30 percent of births are to Albanians, and between 50 and 60 percent to Macedonians. That is a natural movement and there is no disputing the numbers. Our main issue now is that Macedonia is emptying out, that both Macedonians and Albanians and Turks and Vlachs are moving out of the country, we are not two million any more, we are down to between 1.4 and 1.6 million residents, Mickoski said.