VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski intervened in the dispute between Macedonia and Bulgaria by sharing a 1903 New York Times article about the killing of Goce Delcev. In the article, written by the NYT correspondent from Sofia, Delcev is declared as a “famous Macedonian chief” who “practically created the present Macedonian organization”.

Bulgaria is currently blocking Macedonia from opening EU accession talks, and demands a number of concessions on issues of history and national identity, one of which is to declare Goce Delcev as a Bulgarian hero.

In 1903 the New York Times wrote about the death of Goce Delcev declaring a “Macedonian chief’s death”. And 117 years later we are stuck in stories about how Bulgarians want to be our fathers, cousins, brothers. With Zaev, we are losing our country. If the price to pay is self-denial, then our response should be to abandon Zaev’s treaty with our eastern neighbor and to stop the negotiations, Mickoski said.

Bulgaria is evoking the 2017 Zaev – Borisov treaty to demand the concessions. Under it, a joint committee of historians was formed to rewrite Macedonian history, and Bulgaria demands that the new historic narrative, under which the Macedonian nation will be described as newfounded and derived from the Bulgarian, is introduced in Macedonian schools.