Any worsening of bilateral relations between Sofia and Skopje not only makes it impossible to include the Bulgarians in the constitution but is in the interest of Russian goals in the Balkans, says Vessela Tcherneva, the deputy director of the European Council on Foreign Relations and adviser to the former Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov.

In a statement for BTV, Tcherneva points to the decision of the Bulgarian National Assembly of June 24 last year, when the deputies adopted a list of conditions for relations with Skopje, on which talks were supposed to begin, but instead, the opposite happened.

She believes that the relations between Sofia and Skopje will be regulated by Brussels when the negotiations for Macedonia’s membership begin.

The European Union will step into its role as a monitoring body when Macedonia begins negotiations. Macedonia has not yet started negotiating with the EU, because there was one condition – that the Bulgarians be included in the Constitution. That has not been arranged yet, Tcherneva pointed out.

In order to achieve this change, according to her, there must be an appropriate environment, and currently, there is an escalation.

Both sides are guilty. If we are interested in the fate of Bulgarians in Macedonia, Bulgaria’s task is to create favorable conditions so that they can get the rights we want very quickly, says Tcherneva.

Bulgaria’s mistake, as he points out, is also in the names of the cultural clubs that have been opened in Macedonia, the purpose of which is to provoke and not to improve relations.

It is done to provoke the other side. When you open a club to be a bridge for warming relations, you don’t do it to offend the other party, said Tcherneva.