The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bujar Osmani, during yesterday’s meeting with his Portuguese colleague, João Gomes Cravinho, was asked about who are the authors of the content of the Declaration on the Macedonian language, which was submitted to the European Union in response to the Bulgarian one, which states that our language is a dialect of the Bulgarian language. 

Asked who are the authors of the declaration, Osmani said that “people who deal with this matter were consulted”.

The most controversial part of this Declaration, in addition to having several spelling mistakes, is the section on dialects.

It states that the Macedonian language, which was codified in 1945, is based on the dialects that were spread only on the territory of today’s Republic of Macedonia. The dialects in neighboring countries, primarily in Greece and Bulgaria, are not mentioned in the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This caused fierce reactions from the experts who believe that the government gave up on the dialects outside the borders of Macedonia where the Macedonian minority lives and which suffered a second blow after the one with the Prespa Agreement with which the state gave up on caring for them.