VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski called on the citizens to join protests against the expected attempt by the Zaev regime to agree to a new round of concessions in the dispute with Bulgaria. Mickoski today warned that Zaev is ready to agree to have the Bulgarian claims on Macedonian national identity and history made an official part of the EU accession process. This would open a years long process of “death by a thousand cuts” as every EU accession chapter is accompanied by new claims from Bulgaria that Macedonia relinquishes claims to portions of its history, historic figures, and to redefine its language and national identity.

What I want to say today, but also to repeat, is that we learned from high-level diplomatic sources, from Brussels, but also from official Sofia that the demands that are an integral part of the Declaration adopted by the Bulgarian Parliament will practically be part of Macedonia’s negotiating framework with the European Union and from that moment the bilateral problem we have with official Sofia, and refers to the uniqueness of the Macedonian people, culture, tradition, customs, Macedonian language, anti-fascist struggle, all those problems contained in the Declaration adopted by the Bulgarian Parliament will be a problem that we will have with the European Union, ie from a bilateral problem it will grow into a problem between Macedonia and the European Union. We can prevent this only in one way, and that is the public with its criticism, and at the same time the people on the streets, within which VMRO-DPMNE every day starting tomorrow will block Skopje in three places and ten cities in Macedonia in the period from 3 to 5 p.m. until the public is shown the document “Roadmap” or whatever you want to call it, which was negotiated by the Zaev-Buckovski duo with official Sofia, and refers to the acceptance of the Declaration adopted in the Bulgarian Parliament in 2019, to be part of the negotiation process or to be more precise it is the first cluster “fundamentals” or pre-chapter. So, as a nation and as a state, if this is part of the negotiation, we will be faced with a double choice, and that is either assimilation – Bulgarianization in a day when we will complete the reforms and be part of the EU or freeze and abandon the EU dream, Mickoski said.

The protests begin tomorrow, and will include key infrastructure points in three locations in Skopje, and in Ohrid, Bitola, Kicevo, Kavadarci, Prilep, Strumica, Veles, Stip and Kocani. The blockades will last for two hours every afternoon, and the protesters will come on foot and in their vehicles. VMRO was able to stop Zaev from making such concessions at the start of the year, when the party organized protests after Zaev’s infamous BGNES interview, in which he accepted all key Bulgarian demands, but never put them in writing.