Amid multiple warnings that he is preparing to make new, deep concessions to Bulgaria, Zoran Zaev today issued a statement marking the anniversary of the publication of the first orthography of the Macedonian language.

In his remarks Zaev notes that “the Macedonian language went through all the stages of its creation, break-through, codification and recognition, and today it is recognized by the entire world. It’s uniqueness is written down in the designation of our country in the great family of nations and countries – the United Nations”, Zaev said in a Facebook message.

Zaev took a harder public position toward Bulgaria in the past weeks, as he demanded that the European Union delivers on its promise of accession talks without new concession to Bulgaria. But today, VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski warned that Zaev is in well advanced negotiations with Bulgaria under which he will accept that their demands are made part of Macedonia’s EU accession process. This would give Bulgaria great leverage to force concessions from Macedonia for years to come. Mickoski announced protests starting tomorrow against what he said will be Zaev’s next concession on Macedonian national identity issues.

In the past eeks Zaev also pushed to promote an online thesaurus of the Macedonian language, a foundation dedicated to academic Blaze Koneski who codified the Macedonian language post World War Two. But his choice of events to commemorate with regard to the Macedonian language, all after World War Two when the first Macedonian state was finally able to codify the language, is not countrary to Bulgarian positions that the Macedonian language is a Bulgarian dialect which only exists as a separate language after the war.