„If the mixed history commission does not work by June and the Skopje authorities continue to falsify history, Bulgaria will not agree to start pre-accession talks with northern Macedonia.” This was commented by MEP Andrey Kovatchev (GERB/ EPP) for Euroactive Bulgaria.
He announced that by June the European Commission has a deadline to develop a platform for starting membership negotiations with Skopje and Tirana. An intergovernmental conference is then to be held, at which the decision must be unanimously adopted. There is no date for this conference. Maybe it’s after the end of the Croatian presidency of the EU Council on June 30, when the German presidency begins.
Since December last year, the so-called a historical commission between Bulgarian and Macedonian historians does not really work. It was created under the Good Neighbor Agreement between Sofia and Skopje, which preceded the Prespa Agreement on the name of North Macedonia. Skopje claims the commission’s work has been delayed due to delayed elections over the coronavirus crisis.
“I do not see an academic commission of historians and linguists, based on an agreement ratified by both sides, which clearly states that this committee will base its findings entirely on historical monuments, which has to do with election calculations in any of the states.We are categorical against the termination of the work of the commission in the election campaign in Skopje.They are academics, not politicians,” Andrey Kovatchev told Euroactive Bulgaria.
