Responding to comments from Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zakharieva about the tens of thousands of Macedonians who sought Bulgarian citizenship, VMRO-DPMNE Vice President Aleksandar Nikoloski told Kanal 77’s “Stadion” show that this only happened after Bulgaria became a member stat of the European Union.
Zakharieva should ask these 86, 87 thousand people how concerned they are for Bulgaria, and to ask them, why didn’t they claim Bulgarian passports sooner, before Bulgaria became an EU member state? Why did they even sought these passports if they don’t even live in Bulgaria. The answer is simple. These people we going after a piece of bread and a better life, they took the passports and went to live in Germany, in France, in other EU member states, earn money and return home to help out their families in Macedonia, Nikoloski said, insisting that the phenomenon of Bulgarian passports in Macedonia is purely economic and not linked to a suppressed ethnic identity.