TIRANA, April 6 – North Macedonia leaders have reacted with outrage to Bulgaria’s call for it to be given a ‘consultative’ role in planned changes to the country’s constitution, reported BIRN on Thursday.
As North Macedonia gears up for an important constitutional change, to include Bulgarians in the preamble as a constitutive people and so avoid repeated Bulgarian EU blockades, it has condemned a Bulgarian request to be “included” in the process as “scandalous”.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Milkov on Wednesday told media while in Brussels that Sofia wished to be “included” and “consulted” in the process of adding Bulgarians in North Macedonia’s constitution. Milkov added that he had informed his counterpart from Skopje, Bujar Osmani, of the request at their last meeting earlier this week, and was expecting a response.
“Sofia’s request is scandalous,” President Stevo Pendarovski responded on Thursday, “Even occupiers do not send such requests to other countries or territories that they have occupied. In the 21st century, a demand to interfere in the internal political or constitutional and legal process of any country is absurd and unprecedented.”
According to a North Macedonian analyst, there are no guarantees that even the constitutional change will eliminate any further demands and ultimatums from Sofia against North Macedonia. /Argumentum.al
