site.btaBulgarian MEP Stoyanov: Best-Case Scenario Is No Report At All on North Macedonia's EU Membership Progress

Bulgarian MEP Stanislav Stoyanov (Europe of Sovereign Nations/Vazrazhdane) said Wednesday that there being no report at all on North Macedonia's readiness to join the EU is the best that could happen. In an interview with the Bulgarian News Agency at the European Parliament (EP), Stoyanov argued that the process of the report's creation was tainted, because there is a regular information leak. 

On June 4, the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs decided to postpone the vote on the report on North Macedonia’s progress toward EU membership, following a proposal by rapporteur Thomas Waitz. The Committee vote is now scheduled for June 24, with a plenary vote expected in July in Strasbourg.

According to Stoyanov, the EP is put in an extremely unpleasant situation because it seems that this institution is not objective. “On the contrary - it is pierced by third parties who should be the subject of a report, but at the same time it turns out that they are working on its content," Stoyanov said.

He recalled that he had sent a letter requesting an investigation, after which all Bulgarian MEPs had asked for the same. Other MEPs also joined this opinion and the position that there should be some kind of investigation to see what happened, Stoyanov said.

In Stoyanov's words, rapporteur Thomas Waitz was very much compromised by the authorities in the Republic of North Macedonia themselves, because they regularly brought out information and commented on draft amendments, proposals that were not even official, such as whether to have the word "current" in front of "Macedonian identity." According to Stoyanov, it is not the job of a European report, which is supposed to assess a country's progress, to recognise any identity. This has not happened so far. The reports assess the state of the countries, the reforms in the context of the accession process, Stoyanov underscored. He noted that “obviously there is a desire to make some gifts” to Skopje.

According to him, the Republic of North Macedonia does in no way show that it aspires to EU membership. Skopje has clearly spelled out commitments to follow, adopted by the Government in 2022 when the process was unblocked. "Since then, absolutely nothing has happened on their side, only new conditions are being set, even suggesting that the Republic of North Macedonia should first become an EU member state and then make changes to its Constitution," Stoyanov said.

He underscored that "the bullying of people with Bulgarian identity in the Republic of North Macedonia continues." In his words, the problem is not a bilateral one between Bulgaria and North Macedonia, although some people try to define it as such; it is about the protection of human rights, as well as a problem between Skopje and Brussels.

"Bulgaria has unblocked the process and Brussels has stepped up to make the commitments made by Skopje happen," Stoyanov said. He recalled that Bulgaria and North Macedonia have signed a good-neighbourliness treaty with two protocols.

Stoyanov wished the Bulgarians in North Macedonia courage, and stressed that they are not forgotten. "We are working for them and we are doing it for their sake so that they can feel more at ease as European citizens, and not live in fear of being fired or otherwise harmed just because they have identified themselves as Bulgarians," the MEP noted. He said that if the Republic of North Macedonia really wants to become an EU member state, it should stop human rights violations as soon as possible.