Sofia, May 05, (BTA/GNA) – Caretaker Foreign Minister Ivan Kondov told a media briefing here on Wednesday that Sofia expects an EU candidate country to protect effectively all its citizens. “Instead, we are witnessing attempts to silence the Macedonian Bulgarians’ voices by bringing unfounded allegations against them, by pressuring them with lawsuits, by demonizing them in the media, especially on social media.”
Kondov was commenting on relations between Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia and the latest developments concerning the attitude of the authorities of the Republic of North Macedonia towards Bulgarian citizens.
Kondov also talked about the continuing pressure, threats and hate speech against the Bulgarian community in the Republic of North Macedonia.
He recalled that on May 6, Bulgarian MEP Andrey Kovatchev, who is the Spokesperson of the EPP Group for Enlargement and Southern Neighbourhood, Bulgarian Memory Foundation President Milen Vrabevski and another three persons were barred from entering the Republic of North Macedonia for a commemoration at a Bulgarian military cemetery near Novo Selo.
This is a traditional commemoration and has not caused any problems or disputes before, he said.
The Bulgarian citizens were served papers by the border authorities stating that they were on a blacklist in the border control system of the Republic of North Macedonia, Kondov said.
The Foreign Ministry is informing all of Sofia’s partners about this unprecedented act, which is inconsistent with Skopje’s stated intention to maintain good neighbourly relations and deliver on its commitments, the chief diplomat said. Formal letters will be sent to the EU institutions.
Kondov recalled that the Ambassador of the Republic of North Macedonia to Bulgaria, Agneza Popovska, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday. “It should be noted that Ambassador Popovska’s explanation and the press release of the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of North Macedonia are at odds with the official documents served by the border authorities. The latter’s argument that Kovatchev was affected incidentally on account of some other persons who posed a threat to public order is, to say the least, untenable,” Kondov commented.
This case is symptomatic of the problems faced by the caretaker government in Sofia in its relations with Skopje, but also of the problems facing any future government.
“Skopje’s practice is to inform us and our EU partners in a way that is inconsistent with reality or at least with the messages it sends for domestic political purposes. This hinders the restoration of our trust and affects our dialogue negatively,” Kondov said.
He noted that the Republic of North Macedonia was not meeting its commitments and cited a “lack of simple gestures of good will,” such as the agreed apology to the Bulgarians repressed by the Communist regime in the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia and the opening of the archives of the repressive state apparatus for the 1945-1991 period.
Kondov stressed the need for the government of the Republic of North Macedonia to build public support for Bulgarians’ inclusion in the country’s Constitution. The lack of public support for guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens points in itself to a serious problem regarding a country’s EU integration, Kondov added. “But the practice of presenting local Bulgarians as some kind of imported problem that the state is demonstratively dealing with, tends to encourage the negative attitude of part of North Macedonia’s society towards the Bulgarians and makes it impossible to generate constructive public support”, Kondov said. He expressed Bulgaria’s desire to see its neighbour in the EU, but stressed that this depends on Skopje’s actions.
Asked about the blacklist of European citizens who are barred from entering the Republic of North Macedonia, Kondov said that on Tuesday he had addressed questions to Ambassador Popovska about the criteria for putting people on those lists. In his words, Sofia is expecting a reply from Skopje.
BTA/GNA