The “Pendikov” case shakes the European Union as well and is a test for reconsidering European values of Europe itself.

The Dutch expert on the Balkans, Hans van der Berg, believes that EU Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi’s meeting with Macedonian Bulgarians is a bad sign for the credibility of the EU and sends a message that the EU has double standards.

Olivér Várhelyi will meet with the so-called Macedonian Bulgarians

Van den Berg assesses that the double standards of the European Union turn Macedonians away from it.

One ethnic Bulgarian in Macedonia, ex-VMRO/known in drugs world, connected to Bulgarian centre in Macedonia, beaten and EU Commissioner meets ethnic Bulgarians? In decades that Macedonia was independent, ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria were killed, disappeared, and forbidden to have Macedonian centre. Nobody bothered. Bulgaria ignored ECHR rulings time and again, as human rights of ethnic Macedonians in Bu;garia were gravely violated. Nobody in the European Commission bothered. Bulgaria refuses in all accounts reciprocity. Nobody in EC can be bothered. No wonder EU loses all credibility in Macedonia. Double standards. Twitter is too confined to list all human rights violations, of ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria (or ethnic Macedonians in Greece for that matter) but the feeling in Skopje is that all that is OK if you’re in the EU. Less and less Macedonians will want to be in such EU.