In his annual address to the Parliament, President Stevo Pendarovski confirmed the fears raised by the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party that the current Bulgarian nationalist demands will not be the last. Bulgaria wants Macedonia to include the Bulgarian nation in the preamble of its Constitution, but is also determined on broad changes to the Macedonian national identity and historic narrative, that are supposed to be carried out in the course of Macedonia’s EU accession talks.

Pendarovski supports that constitutional amendents and claimed that they will not have a negative effect on Macedonian national identity, but also served a dose of realism, mentioning the recent blockade of Romania’s and Bulgaria’s accession to the Schengen zone.

If two EU member states can be blocked from one of the most important projects of the common European space, of course that no-one can give guarantees to a candidate country that is just now beginning its accession talks, Pendarovski said.

VMRO-DPMNE official Vladimir Misajlovski responded to Pendarovski by stating that he should protect Macedonian national interests. “Instead of standing up to the assimilation pressures, Pendarovski said nothing how he will confront it”.