President Rumen Radev sent a letter to the heads of the European institutions and EU member states on the adopted draft report by the EP Foreign Policy Committee on the progress of the Republic of North Macedonia in the process of European integration.
We publish the letter without editorial intervention:
"The reason for addressing you is the development of the case with the report of the European Parliament /EP/ on the progress of the Republic of North Macedonia /RM/ in the process of negotiations for EU membership.
The planned vote on the draft of this report in the EP Foreign Policy Committee on June 4 this year was postponed and took place today. Within the framework of today's vote, an oral proposal was made to add the clarification “modern“ /in the modern sense/ before the Macedonian identity and language, which unfortunately was not allowed to vote after carefully prepared procedural moves.
From the very beginning, the case of this report caused a wave of indignation and criticism in Bulgaria against the actions and approaches in its preparation. The fact that a respected institution such as the European Parliament pronounces on categories of a moral nature or a specifically scientific orientation such as “identity“ and “language“, in the absence of a legal basis and of relevant competences, is worrying. Similar references to “language and identity“ without a specific definition, they risk free interpretations, which our southwestern neighbors are already making with their claims to the “centuries-old Macedonian identity“.
The circumstances surrounding the preparation of the report are disturbing, after it became known that its text had been leaked to the Macedonian Parliament and the Prime Minister of that country publicly boasted that Skopje had worked together with MEPs for months and had influenced some of the theses in it. The numerous unregulated meetings of rapporteur Weitz with politicians and experts from the Macedonian Parliament /announced only after a public report was filed about irregularities in the course of the report's preparation/ also caused bewilderment. There are no such checks for the co-rapporteur at all. The revelations raise a number of questions about the integrity and transparency in the work of certain European MPs and administrative officials.
I welcome the decision of the European Parliament to reject the claims of the “centuries-old Macedonian identity“ and to prevent new attempts to push the ethnocentric nationalist narrative of the rulers in Skopje. Such an approach confronts both the other ethnic communities in the RSM and the two million Bulgarian citizens /who are also EU citizens/ with ethnic origin from the territory of today's North Macedonia.
At the same time, the anti-Bulgarian campaign in the RSM is going on at an unabated pace. It is unacceptable for a country that is a candidate for EU membership and loudly advertising that it has long since achieved all the criteria for membership to prosecute its citizens who openly identify themselves as Bulgarians. Our country has long informed the European institutions about the pressure and discrimination to which Bulgarians in the RSM are subjected. The local court refuses to file substantiated cases against the perpetrators of such acts, guaranteeing their impunity. Most recently, the local Bulgarian Ljupcho Georgievski, chairman of the defunct association Cultural Center “Ivan Mihaylov“ -Bitola, was convicted in the RSM on the absurd charge of spreading hatred, xenophobia and discrimination. One of the amendments that our country proposed to the draft report adopted today was in connection with the “Georgievsky“ case, but unfortunately it also remained out of sight of the European deputies.
Bulgaria remains committed to all elements of the 2022 European consensus, the implementation of which is the only possibility for European integration of our southwestern neighbor.
The attempts so far to motivate the rulers in Skopje through concessions from this consensus are not leading to the desired result. On the contrary, the rulers in Skopje are increasingly openly demonstrating that they will not comply with this difficult-to-achieve compromise, also accepted by the RSM, which means that they do not actually intend to realize the European integration of the country.
Please accept my assurances that Bulgaria will not accept a replacement for the difficult-to-achieve European compromise. The rights of Bulgarians in the RSM cannot be the subject of political negotiations.
Strengthening trust in European institutions, especially in times of crisis, is our common duty and I count on your cooperation in this".