VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski announced that if Bulgaria continues with its current set of demands, Macedonia needs to abandon the 2017 Zaev – Borisov treaty and seek a new one. Under the treaty, Bulgaria demands a number of concessions on issues of history and national identity, and states that otherwise it will continue to block Macedonia from opening EU accession talks.

I will ask for a clear declaration that we will not negotiate on the uniqueness of the Macedonian language, identity and history. And if Bulgaria continues to demands these concessions, for us the treaty with Bulgaria will be dead. A treaty like this one should offer future, not past. This treaty does not offer future, Mickoski said, during his interview with the public MRTV television.

Mickoski compared Zaev’s stated readiness to use power tools on World War Two memorial plaques that refer to Bulgaria as the then “fascist occupier” as a form of “talibanism”.

Why didn’t he consult the opposition, tell us about his intentions to alter the plaques such as they are, as the Taliban did in Afghanistan?, Mickoski asked.

Bulgaria considers the plaques a form of hate speech and in his infamous BGNES interview Zaev already agreed to refer to the Bulgarian occupation in WW2 as an administration, and the subsequent switching of sides on the part of Bulgaria – as a liberation.
Mickoski noted that in 1947 Bulgaria signed a teraty in which it acknowledges that it occupied Macedonia, and was at the time collaborator of Nazi Germany.