Pendarovski: If the Bulgarians are included in North Macedonia’s Constitution, our country will not perish

If the Bulgarians are included in the Constitution, our country will not perish, the President of the Republic of North Macedonia, Stevo Pendarovski, said at a joint press conference with the President of Austria Alexander Van der Bellen in Skopje.

Pendarovski said that there is no danger for the country to include three or four more parts of nations in the preamble of the country's Constitution. This is one of the requirements in the protocol signed between Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia in July 2022 and a condition for the country's continuing European integration. Pendarovski said there are 3,500 Bulgarians in the Republic of North Macedonia. He cited census data from March last year.

He added that in order to achieve a two-thirds majority in the country's Assembly for constitutional changes, talks should also be held with the opposition and that the inclusion of Bulgarians in the basic law in no way endangers Macedonian sovereignty, independence and the country's European path.

Asked what will happen if a two-thirds majority is not found, he pointed out that if the constitutional change is not made by the end of November this year, as it is according to the negotiating framework, the country will obviously be blocked again, but this time it will block itself, on the road to the EU.

Pendarovski added that those who think the negotiating framework of last July is not good or that they could make a better one, do not know how the EU mechanisms work. He pointed out that there is no possibility to renegotiate the conditions to which the 27 EU member states have signed. He said that in the negotiations last year, France was only a mediator and that Bulgaria, like all the other member states, had agreed to this negotiating framework.

Asked whether new demands were possible on the way to the EU, he said that the question was logical, but another member state should not be allowed to put identity and history issues as conditions, as this puts the prestige of the EU in question.

Image by BTA/Presidency of North Macedonia