1 How was the Macedonian government planning to hide the proposal of the French presidency to convene the first intergovernmental conference with the EU? Especially, how could it hide a proposal which isn’t even the real start of the accession talks until we change our Constitution once again at the request of an EU member state? If the Government is so convinced that it’s struck a good deal with France to make an acceptable proposal, why was it hiding it? Or, perhaps, they were waiting for Radev to reject the proposal, so we’d look good with one more veto by December.
In Bulgaria, the proposal was sent for consideration to the Parliament. Unlike here, where we’ll keep analyzing it at home. And, as usual, at party rallies.
Now the government will convince us that that’s always the case when negotiating – that everyone must lose something. What will Bulgaria lose? Nothing. On the contrary, it gains the opportunity to block us in the future, whenever it wants. The European Union has lost its credibility by allowing the issue whether one people and one language exist to become part of the negotiation process.
What can we expect from the European Union in future, if during the negotiation process Bulgaria gets their kicks from harassing us? And they will harass us. Have they included a hatred meter in the negotiation framework!? After all, it’s not that big of a deal that we’ll change the Constitution once again. The scary bit is that the day will come when the Macedonian language in the European Union will be marked with an asterisk because Bulgaria says it doesn’t exist. Since, they’re inside, and we’re outside.
It’s not a case of Europeanisation of Macedonia. It’s Bulgarisation. Going back to 1941. No matter if it was called a Bulgarian administration, or a fascist occupation.
2 That’s why Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski should’ve accepted the invitation of Montegrin Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic to go to Kyiv with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, instead of appearing as a hologram from the oasis of peace. When his office announced that he couldn’t go to Ukraine because of his tight schedule, it didn’t even occur to me that the opening of the Balkan high school games was more important than the Russian aggression and the war in Europe. Kovachevski missed the opportunity to make the news all over the world. He also missed the opportunity to announce in the middle of Kyiv that Russia is using Bulgaria to put a veto on Macedonia and thus destabilize Europe even further. An opportunity to explain that Bulgaria is doing that with the same arguments Putin is using to justify the aggression against Ukraine. He says the Ukrainian people is made up, the Ukrainian language is made up, just as Bulgaria says that the Macedonian people is made up, that Macedonian language is made up. In the case of Ukraine, the European Union doesn’t accept that. In the case of Macedonia, it puts all of that in a negotiating framework. And it marks the language with an asterisk.
If Dimitar Kovachevski had gone to Kyiv, it would have been just a day before the visit of the leaders of France, Germany and Italy, Emanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Mario Draghi. He would’ve been able to share with Volodymyr Zelensky the Macedonian European experience. To say: “Listen, these three coming tomorrow, don’t take for granted everything they promise. They have their own partners back at home, member states that one day might dare say we’re inside and they’re outside, we’re allowed to harass them. We even changed our name, they promised we’d start the accession talks, and here we are, they’re still messing around with us. Maybe you won’t be asked to change your name, but you’ll surely need to give away some territory. Hopefully no one from the EU will say you’re not Ukrainians and you don’t speak Ukrainian, as Bulgaria says to us. That’s what Putin says, but Putin is not Radev”.
“And the fact that Ursula von der Leyen stated in Brussels that the European Union recommended granting you a candidate status, also doesn’t mean anything”, Kovachevski could’ve said to Zelensky, had he missed the opening of the high school games in Ohrid. And he would’ve added: “You can’t imagine how happy we were for the recommendation back in December 2005. We even organized a concert in the main square to celebrate. Don’t be so happy about the candidate status. The policy on European security is currently being developed in Sofia. See if Slavi Trifonov can pull a few strings”.
3 The day when Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov announced that he had asked Germany for help by sending German customs officers to the “Kapitan Andreevo” border crossing, EU’s last border with Turkey, because Bulgarian customs officers were too corrupt, the leader of the coalition partner from “There is such a people” Slavi Trifonov withdrew his ministers from the Government to make sure the veto on Macedonia won’t be lifted.
More than a billion euros was stolen annually at that border crossing. The company that carried out the border checks was initially close to Boyko Borisov’s party and is now associated with Slavi Trifonov’s party. During Borisov’s rule, security cameras were turned off.
That’s probably how things are done according to the Copenhagen criteria. How would we know? They probably know, since they’re inside and we’re outside.
And now – what can we do to ensure smooth negotiations with the EU when the demands of a European Bulgaria of this sort are included in the negotiating framework? They don’t mind holding the fourth elections in just a year, they’ll waste money, Americans, Germans and other European countries will be angry with them for endangering Europe’s security, Moscow will hold the reins and Russia will be working from within, people will struggle to make ends meet, inflation will run rampant, but, still, the veto on Macedonia is what matters the most and it mustn’t be lifted.
There really is “such a people” that wants leaders to keep them busy with Macedonia in order to hide their stealing.
There is such a people over here as well. Truth be told, such leaders as well.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
