Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva said that citizens in Macedonia can self-identify themselves any way they wish, but that this include “historic lies and anti-Bulgarian rhetoric”. Macedonia and Bulgaria have a growing dispute about the Macedonian national identity. Bulgaria is using the 2017 Zaev – Borisov treaty to demand concessions from Macedonia before it will allow the opening of EU accession talks.

Their self-determination, their nation they are building since 1944, can’t be based on lies and anti-Bulgarian campaigns but on the truth. The basis of our treaty is the shared history. No-one can deny the right to Macedonia to have its own state and how people individually self-identify, which is a human right, Zaharieva said in an interview.

The Foreign Minister protested against the withdrawal of the Macedonian historians from the joint committee on historic issues. The committee stopped its work after it hit a major road-block when Bulgarian historians demanded that their Macedonian colleagues agree that legendary leader of the VMRO Macedonian national liberation movement Goce Delcev was a Bulgarian. The excuse cited by the Macedonian historians were the coming elections, which have since been called off. Bulgaria demands that the committee resumes its work and the Macedonian historians make the required concessions before it allows the opening of EU accession talks.