Bulgaria disobeyed the EU and blocked an “important pan-European decision”
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva said today that Bulgaria refuses to give the green light to the start of negotiations on North Macedonia's accession to the EU.
The head of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry cited controversial issues between the countries regarding history and language as the reason for this.
“At this stage, Bulgaria cannot support the project of negotiations with the Republic of North Macedonia and the holding of the first intergovernmental conference on this issue,” Zaharieva noted after EU ministers discussed the issue at an online meeting.
In March, the EU agreed that North Macedonia and Albania could begin membership talks, and an intergovernmental conference of representatives of the 27 EU member states with the two Balkan countries was scheduled for December.
Zaharieva added that Bulgaria only approved the start of negotiations with Albania.
Bulgaria has repeatedly said it supports North Macedonia's entry into the EU, but long-running disputes over the historical figures both countries cite as national heroes and the Macedonian language, which Bulgaria considers a dialect of Bulgarian, have escalated in recent months.
This Macedonian was clearly in a hurry with the EU flag.
Earlier, representatives of other EU states made it clear understand official Sofia that they are “discouraged by the behavior of Bulgaria,” which is trying to block “a very important pan-European decision due to its internal problems.” And they threatened that “if Bulgaria continues to demonstrate uncompromising behavior, it will lose the good attitude towards itself that many countries have had until now.”
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