Bulgarian historian and diplomat Angel Dimitrov, who heads the Bulgarian team in the joint historic committee with Macedonia, said that the past two days of discussions were “fruitless”. The Macedonian Foreign Ministry, which is assuming an ever more intrusive role on the Macedonian side of the committee, also informed that the talks did not lead to results and that the two sides remain far from reaching agreement.

According to Dimitrov, talks on the legacy of medieval Tsar Samuil yielded no result, adding that “we are stuck in the 10th and 11th century”. Bulgaria is hoping to use the committee to get Macedonia to accept the Bulgarian historic narrative, and teach it to school-children in Macedonia, expecting that over time, it will impose the position that the Macedonian nation is derived from the Bulgarian.
Dimitrov also accused the Macedonian side of refusing to accept the Bulgarian position that the two countries have a “common” history – Macedonian historians prefer to use the term “shared”, which indicates that we are talking about two nations with overlap in some historic events. The Bulgarian position is that they are debating the single historic narrative of a single nation.

The next meeting is scheduled for February 2022, which means that there will be no progress in the talks before the European Council on December 14th, when Macedonia was hoping that Bulgaria could lift its veto against Macedonia’s EU accession talks.
In a briefing circulated by the Macedonian MFA, it is said that the differences come from the “unilateral approach” by the Bulgarian historians and “the past and the different views on history should not affect the shared goal of building good-neighborly relations and friendship” between the two countries.

According to Dimitrov, the two sides only agreed to adopt the minutes from their previous meeting.