Zaharieva to Die Welt: It’s like celebrating the anniversary of Hitler’s death in Berlin

Two German-language publications still pay attention to the dispute between Bulgaria and Northern Macedonia. In an extensive interview with Die Welt, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva explained why Bulgaria is blocking the process of Northern Macedonia’s accession to the EU.

Euronews is also addressing this issue. On its website, the media reminds that Bulgaria intended to profile itself as a regional leader, and in the program of its EU presidency the enlargement of the EU in the Western Balkans was included as a priority. Now, however, the Bulgarian government claims that the Neighborhood Agreement with Northern Macedonia is not being respected. Zaharieva herself puts it this way: “When there are unresolved bilateral issues, when treaties are systematically ignored, it means that the candidate country is not prepared.”

“Unfounded reproaches to Bulgaria”

In an interview with Die Welt, Zaharieva said Bulgaria’s support for starting accession talks with the Western Balkans has always been consistent, but not unconditional. Such conditions were set when the Bulgarian approval for the start of negotiations was given in March. One of these conditions was for Northern Macedonia to achieve tangible results in implementing the bilateral good neighborly agreement.

On the question exactly which elements of the agreement in question were not complied with Zaharieva explains that the work of the expert commission of historians, which was supposed to resolve controversial historical issues, was suspended by the government in Skopje about a year ago with the inexplicable, according to Zaharieva, argument that elections are coming up in northern Macedonia.

The foreign minister also mentioned infrastructure problems. According to her, Northern Macedonia has not proposed a single east-west infrastructure project to be included in the country’s accession budget. Bulgaria has been waiting for a year and a half for an answer to the three-year program for education and culture proposed by Sofia.

In the interview Zaharieva rejects the accusation that Bulgaria insists that the Macedonian language be recognized as a Bulgarian dialect.

“The most difficult topic is the unfounded criticism that has been going on for a long time – it is claimed that we do not recognize the right of Macedonians to self-determination or their right to call their language as they see fit,” Zaharieva said, then repeated almost verbatim. the words of Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Dimitrov that states do not recognize languages ​​or nations, but only other states. In this regard, Zaharieva clarified that Bulgaria does not deny the right of Northern Macedonia to self-determination.

“The exact opposite is true,” said the Bulgarian foreign minister, arguing that over the past ten years, more than 88,000 Macedonians have received Bulgarian citizenship because of their Bulgarian origin. “But anyone who self-identifies as a Bulgarian citizen in today’s northern Macedonia is still discriminated against,” Zaharieva said, adding that two weeks ago the personal data of these people were published and some of them were even threatened with death.

“Let’s calm the emotions”

Later in the interview, Zaharieva argued that the current dispute with northern Macedonia was not an attempt by the government in Sofia to divert attention from discontent within the country. In this regard, the Minister cites data according to which the support for the government on this issue amounts to 83.5%.

Zaharieva made the following recommendation to the government in Skopje: “For two months now, we have been listening mainly to what they do not intend to do. I have repeatedly suggested to them that we focus on the things you intend to do, not on what you do not want to do. “Don’t make so much noise and don’t give interviews to all the media ten times a day. Let’s try to calm our emotions. No one is challenging your rights, but it should be clear that we are not setting any new conditions.”

Towards the end of the interview, Zaharieva expressed her dissatisfaction with the fact that only between September 1st and November 20th in the Macedonian media were published 14,699 negative articles about Bulgaria, while during the same period there were 450 positive publications in Bulgaria for the neighboring country.

Zaharieva is also puzzled by the fact that Skopje marked the 40th anniversary of the death of dictator Tito. On this occasion, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister said: “It is as if the mayor of Berlin had the idea to mark the anniversary of Hitler’s death.”

The text has been published HERE