© Julia Lazarova
– Ilhan Küçük is the rapporteur for Northern Macedonia, who also proposed amendments to the text.
The European Parliament’s contested report on northern Macedonia in recent days was adopted by a large majority, but without the amendment, which caused the greatest dissatisfaction among a number of Bulgarian MEPs.
The Group of Socialists and Democrats proposed amendments to condemn the Bulgarian authorities’ “provocative statements” about history and to welcome the balanced response of their Macedonian counterparts.
In the debate, the dispute over the interference of history in bilateral issues was practically replaced by a discussion on the rights of people with Bulgarian identity. In the course of the work on the text – which calls for the start of negotiations with Northern Macedonia and a solution to the crisis between Sofia and Skopje – it reiterates the lack of progress following previous recommendations against discrimination against people with Bulgarian identity, also as a result of amendments.
In the end, 558 people voted in favor of the report, 16 of them out of 17 Bulgarian MEPs (Iskra Mihailova did not vote). Only 70 were against and another 59 abstained.
However, along with this amendment, another was not adopted, according to which the European Parliament “regrets that the authorities in Skopje do not recognize the existence of a Bulgarian community, despite the fact that over 120,000 people have declared their Bulgarian origin.” All Bulgarian MEPs voted for her.
Further amendments by the far-right Identity and Democracy group, expressing concern over arms trafficking, neo-Ottomanism and Islam in the Western Balkans, have been rejected.
More about the positions of the Bulgarian MEPs and the proposed amendments read here.
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