During a TV interview, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev acknowledged that Bulgaria will block Macedonia from opening EU accession talks unless he gives up on insisting that legendary VMRO leader Goce Delcev was exclusively a Macedonian.
Bulgaria has been demanding a concession on the ethnic identity of Delcev for months, basing the request on the 2017 Zaev – Borisov treaty under which Macedonia agreed to work with Bulgaria to adopt a shared historic narrative. Frustrated with Zaev’s delay, Bulgaria also sent out a harshly worded memorandum to the European Council, in which it declares that the Macedonian nation is recently derived from the Bulgarian nation, and that the Macedonian language is a dialect of the Bulgarian.
I believe that the historic commission will look at the positive aspect of the issue, through a positive lens, toward building bridges of friendship. The problem is in our different worldviews. We must look at this like a bridge of cooperation. Not to seize issues. If we seize Goce Delcev and claim him as solely a Macedonian, there will be no solution with Bulgaria, Zaev said, in an open request aimed at the historians who are members of the joint committee with Bulgaria.
Comments are closed for this post.