site.btaVP Iotova: Bulgaria Cannot Okay Start of Skopje’s EU Accession Talks Before Bulgarians’ Rights Are Guaranteed

“Bulgaria will continue to insist before European institutions that it cannot okay the start of EU accession talks with Skopje while these relations are not regulated,” Vice President Iliana Iotova told journalists in Ohrid on Sunday. Iotova, who is paying a two-day visit to the Republic of North Macedonia, was commenting on the human rights of the people with Bulgarian self-awareness in Bulgaria’s southwestern neighbour.

“These guarantees cannot be verbal. Five years after the signing of the Treaty of Friendship (Good-neighbourliness and Cooperation) nearly nothing has happened in that respect. Or on some other items under the Treaty, regretfully,” Iotova noted.

She reiterated her words of the previous day that the highest guarantee for the rights of Bulgarians in the Republic of North Macedonia is the Constitution.

“Bulgaria has put forward the condition for certain texts in secondary school textbooks and the drafting of a relevant teaching methodology. The bilateral historical commission was established specifically to determine the texts. Second, we demand opening of the archives involving the persecution of people for their Bulgarian self-awareness. Then comes the continuing desecration of monuments,” the Vice President recalled.

Iotova is paying a two-day visit to the Republic of North Macedonia.