The Macedonian president Stevo Pendarovski counted 3500 Bulgarians in the countryreported BGNES.
During his joint press conference in Skopje with the Austrian Chancellor Van der Belen Pendarovski stated: “We have established protection standards, which in international law are called national minorities, and in our country parts of peoples. There is no /danger/ that if we add another 3-4 parts of peoples who no doubt live with us – regardless of their number You know very well that the Bulgarian minority or part of the people is about 3500 people in Macedonia. Our country will certainly not perish,” the Macedonian head of state pointed out.
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Pendarovski announced that a commission will be created as soon as possible, which will prepare the necessary proposals for changes to the Constitution. It will also include a representative from the office of the president of the RSM.
To a question whether it can be expected that new conditions will be imposed on the country during the negotiation processPendarovski replied that it should not, but no one could have predicted the conditions that Bulgaria has set in the last two years, adds BTA.
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“Because there was a complete consensus in which the Bulgarian government participated in 2017, 2018, 2019, when we added the North to Macedonia with constitutional changes, there was a general consensus that there would be no new demands. And now the logical question is, if we make these constitutional changes, whether tomorrow or the day after tomorrow some other member or country that blocked us 2.5 years ago, won’t remember to make another request? I hope such things do not happen,” said Pendarovski, who stated that the EU itself should not allow any member state to problematize someone’s entry into the EU “with something that has nothing to do with real criteria, values and principles, for whom it was created and for whom it exists”.
“Blocking a country due to historical issues is illegal and should not be allowed in modern Europe,” Pendarovski said.