In an interview with Austrian ORF TV, Macedonian President Stevo Pendarovski blasted the Bulgarian decision to block Macedonia from opening EU accession talks. Pendarovski insisted that the current Bulgarian demands go against common sense and basic democratic principles.

When we signed the Friendship treaty with Bulgaria in 2017, it seemed that there is clearly declared will on both parties to implement the treaty. Now, the same political structure which was behind the signing of the treaty is moving outside of its framework and in the opposite direction. There is not a single word anywhere in the treaty, no article, paragraph or preamble, that declares that we need to discuss the ethnic origin of us, the Macedonians. There is not a single letter, word, article.. that we must negotiate with the Bulgarian side about the language that I now speak, whether it is Macedonian or not, Pendarovski said.

The President added that it is acceptable that Bulgaria wants to protect the rights of Macedonian citizens who declare to be ethnic Bulgarians, but noted that at the same time it denies the right to Bulgarian citizens to claim they are Macedonians.